When International Spying Fails, the CIA Turns to World of Warcraft

Original screenshot: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/magalie/2801138335/">Magalie A.</a>/Flickr

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After a string of failures in the real world, the Central Intelligence Agency is turning its attention to Azeroth.

ProPublica, the Guardian, and the New York Times reported jointly on Monday that the CIA, the NSA, and British intelligence agencies infiltrate online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life, to seek out scientists, engineers, embassy workers, and other foreign operatives who could be recruited as spies .

The documents obtained by the three news organizations give no evidence that monitoring online games have led to the capture of any terrorists. But the CIA’s real-world spying isn’t going well either, a gaggle of former agency officials told the Los Angeles Times Monday.

The CIA’s $3 billion overseas spying program depended heavily on operatives given “non-official cover,” or NOCs, who typically pose as businesspeople and gather intelligence from foreign universities, businesses, and local hotspots, the paper reports. But NOCs and those recruiting them face a myriad of challenges. For starters, the CIA has trouble finding NOCs with language skills—and if you can’t speak passable Pashto, you’re probably not going to uncover much intelligence in Pashto-speaking parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In some cases, NOCs take advantage of their special status, billing the CIA for unjustified time and expenses, the former CIA officials told the paper. And NOCs, who have no diplomatic immunity, are often kept out of more dangerous locations by their handlers, limiting the amount of useful information they can obtain. “If you’re a high-grade agency manager, are you going to sign off on a memo that puts Joe Schmuckatelli in Pyongyang?” one former case officer told the Times.

The CIA’s reliance on NOCs has damaged its overseas spying efforts, the officials told the paper. In Iran, for instance, authorities exposed American operatives despite fake identities working for CIA-created front companies. And Iran wasn’t an exception: One official told the paper he knew of only three successful NOCs in his 23 years as a case officer. Maybe focusing some more attention on World of Warcraft is a good idea after all.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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