Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren bog obam here. In mid July,
Speaker 1: Maria Boutina, a twenty nine year old assistant to the
Speaker 1: Russian Central Bank and to longtime Vladimir Putin ally Alexander Torsien,
Speaker 1: was arrested in Washington, d C. On a charge of
Speaker 1: conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government.
Speaker 1: Per the affidavit, Boutina was allegedly involved in an operation
Speaker 1: led by officials within the Russian government to infiltrate the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, including members of the Trump campaign and the
Speaker 1: National Rifle Association, for the purposes of aligning right wing
Speaker 1: political interests with similar interests in Russia. Boutina's actions dovetailed
Speaker 1: with continued efforts by Russian operatives to commit cyber espionage
Speaker 1: to influence US elections. According to the affidavit, two American
Speaker 1: citizens provided Boutina intelligence and guidance on her efforts in
Speaker 1: the United States. M I five, the Intelligence Agency of
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, defines espionage as the process of obtaining
Speaker 1: information that is not normally publicly available using human resources
Speaker 1: agents or technical means like hacking into computer systems. It
Speaker 1: may also involve seeking to influence decision makers and opinion
Speaker 1: formers to benefit the interests of a foreign power. As
Speaker 1: Boutina and countless other spies throughout history have discovered, espionage
Speaker 1: is a dangerous game, one that can lead to imprisonment
Speaker 1: or even death. What motivates people to commit acts of
Speaker 1: espionage is as important as the ramifications of their actions,
Speaker 1: and naturally simple ideology serves as a motivator to commit espionage,
Speaker 1: but it's not the singular cause. According to a spring
Speaker 1: article in the Intelligencer Journal of u S Intelligence Studies,
Speaker 1: ideology is quote adopted by an individual to the degree
Speaker 1: that it reflects the individuals ego. In that sense, an
Speaker 1: ideology is like another motivation money, and that it serves
Speaker 1: as a vehicle for the individual to express a personal
Speaker 1: value or belief, and ideology has chosen in order to
Speaker 1: confirm conscious or unconscious beliefs the individual has already internalized.
Speaker 1: In the case of espionage, a particular ideology may serve
Speaker 1: as either the actual motivation for a spy to breach
Speaker 1: the trust placed in them, or simply as a means
Speaker 1: of rationalizing that behavior. Three concurrent elements need to exist
Speaker 1: within an individual to make them prone to acts of espionage,
Speaker 1: a personality dysfunction, personal crisis, and opportunity. According to Dr
Speaker 1: ur Slow Wilder, a clinical psychologist with the Central Intelligence Agency,
Speaker 1: for personality elements are essential to the entry into espionage, psychopathy, narcissism, immaturity,
Speaker 1: and grandiosity, she stated in an interview at the International
Speaker 1: Spy Museum in Washington, d C. A psychopathic person is
Speaker 1: a person whose approach to reality is ruthless and cold.
Speaker 1: They have no conscience or they have very limited capacity
Speaker 1: to feel guilt, so their whole approach to life is predatory.
Speaker 1: Their excitement seeking. They love to con people. It's a game.
Speaker 1: This is all they can do to connect with other
Speaker 1: human beings. So that kind of person will commit espionage,
Speaker 1: either flat out for self interest or because it's fun,
Speaker 1: or both, she explained. The next is narcissism. A narcissistic
Speaker 1: person is fundamentally egocentric. They can only experience the world
Speaker 1: with themselves at the center. They are very much needy
Speaker 1: for and will provoke circumstances that will permit them to
Speaker 1: be at the center of attention. They believe that what
Speaker 1: they need, want, and desire is truth. They will get
Speaker 1: greedy for attention. That kind of person will commit espionage
Speaker 1: as a grab for fame. Someone like that will commit
Speaker 1: espionage because it makes them feel big and important. Re
Speaker 1: Arting immaturity, Wilder said that an individual prone to commit
Speaker 1: acts of espionage in comparison to a professional intelligence agent,
Speaker 1: either for or against their nation, is quote an adult
Speaker 1: who can only function as an adolescent. These people live
Speaker 1: their lives in a blend of fact and fantasy. They
Speaker 1: do have a conscience, they can feel deep guilt afterwards,
Speaker 1: but fantasy is much more real to them than it
Speaker 1: is to adults who are grounded in reality. So to them,
Speaker 1: committing espionage is a bit of a game, a fantasy,
Speaker 1: and online they have this illusion that if they do
Speaker 1: it online, if they just turn off the machine, it
Speaker 1: goes away. They have a fantasy about the implications of
Speaker 1: their actions, and although on some level they might grasp
Speaker 1: the reality of it, it's not real to them. The
Speaker 1: grandiosity applies to all three. Furthermore, an individual must be
Speaker 1: up against some form of personal crisis that produces distress.
Speaker 1: According to a paper released by the CIA titled y Spy,
Speaker 1: a survey of agency employees, quote identified emotional instability related
Speaker 1: to ambition, anger leading to a need for revenge, feelings
Speaker 1: of being unrecognized and unrewarded, and loneliness as the top
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities on the road to espionage. They ranked such problem
Speaker 1: behaviors as drug abuse and delicit sex as second, and
Speaker 1: various mental crises or stresses brought on by debt, work
Speaker 1: issues or psychological factors such as depression as third. Regarding
Speaker 1: opportunity access matters, an individual must have access to sensitive
Speaker 1: information of some caliber that could be of use to
Speaker 1: a foreign power. All three combined, the personality, the crises,
Speaker 1: and the access serve as fertile soil for acts of espionage,
Speaker 1: but it is important to make the distinction between ordinary
Speaker 1: people who commit espionage and individuals who join intelligence services.
Speaker 1: For the article of this episode is based on how
Speaker 1: Stuff Work. Spoke with Dr David L. Charney, a psychiatrist
Speaker 1: with the National Office of Intelligence Reconciliation known as NOIR,
Speaker 1: a nonprofit dedicated to educating the intelligence community on the
Speaker 1: management of insider threats. He said, people who joined the
Speaker 1: intel community spent years preparing themselves, school, applying screening, and
Speaker 1: there's a huge amount of drive and ambition, identification, pride,
Speaker 1: He explained that this would include people with access to
Speaker 1: sensitive information who flipped, such as Edward Snowdon or Reality
Speaker 1: winner quote. They're not coming into be spies, they join
Speaker 1: for loftier reasons. The question is what makes a person
Speaker 1: go bad. That's when you have to get more psychological.
Speaker 1: According to Charney, at the core of espionage can be
Speaker 1: an intolerable sense of personal failure and not necessarily a
Speaker 1: shifting ideology. He said, going back to the ideological spies
Speaker 1: of the nineteen thirties and forties, we run a cross
Speaker 1: people all the time who you know have personal demons
Speaker 1: that are driving them, but they wrapped their demons into
Speaker 1: the current issue of the day to give it a
Speaker 1: higher minded packaging. Anytime you try to understand, you have
Speaker 1: to dig a little deeper. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article why do ordinary people commit acts of espionage?
Speaker 1: On how Stuffworks dot com written by Jared w Alexander.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuff Works dot Com and is produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler clang Or more podcasts for my heart Radio is
Speaker 1: that the heart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows