Asha Rangappa Quotes

We should be adult enough to understand that major countries are going to be spying on us.

SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, also has no executive powers and operates abroad on CIA lines, but with a tiny percentage of the budget and a tiny percentage of the personnel.

I think all governments engage in intelligence gathering vis-a-vis other governments.

I have one anecdote about the FBI breaking into an embassy in Washington, and under Hoover, they had this sort of ruse whereby they didn't want to recommend a break-in that might be a big flap and cause all kinds of problems.

…historically, the official personnel of the Soviet bloc countries assigned to this nation, including those at the United Nations, have been used extensively for espionage purposes…

Ambassadors are the eyes and ears of states.

[CIA] Case officers most fear the US ambassador and his staff, then restrictive headquarters cables, then curious gossipy neighbors in the local community, as potential threats to the operation. Next would come the local police, then the press. Last of all is the KGB.

CIA will not develop operations to penetrate another Government agency, even with the approval of its leadership.

When I was UN ambassador, the French were monitoring me.

A chief of station is the head of all intelligence operations in any given country.

Like any country with sophisticated intelligence services, Russia has long been a careful student of U.S. freedoms, laws and the constraints of its main nemesis in the U.S., the FBI.

I would not put C.I.A. officers at risk by asking them to undertake risky, controversial activity again.

As a former FBI counterintelligence agent who investigated foreign propaganda cases, I've seen firsthand how foreign intelligence services leverage American freedoms - and the constitutional limitations on the FBI's investigative power - to their advantage.

I spent over ten years in the Central Intelligence Agency as an undercover operations officer serving overseas after 9/11 where I carried out covert operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, as well as other countries who are 'hostile to liberty,' as I like to say.

As a former F.B.I. special agent who conducted counterintelligence investigations, I can attest that foreign intelligence services do not operate on the basis of explicit agreements or even actions that, standing alone, constitute criminal activity.

In most cases, cables are marked secret not because the U.S. requires it but because those speaking to us - the foreign leaders across the table - do. They are not keeping secrets from us, but from two other groups: their enemies and their subjects.

Why are diplomatic cables secret at all?

Well look, CIA is an agency that has to collect intelligence, do operations. We have to take risks and it's important that we take risks and that we know that we have the support of the government and we have the support of the American people in what we're doing.

You can't get closer to the heart of national sovereignty than national security and intelligence services.

A major theme in all my books is that the CIA is not only the first line of defense but they should also be the first line of offense.

I've been called a spy of Israel since 1996, and since I made my documentary film in 2000 the FBI has investigated me as an agent of Iraq. The FBI has also opened up an investigation into my wife calling her a KGB spy.

Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

When I handed over the names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union, I had come to the conclusion that the loss of these sources to the U.S. would not compromise significant national defense, political, diplomatic interests.

No one's interested really in knowing what policies or diplomatic initiatives or arms negotiations might have been compromised by me.

Another factor is the decision, made in 1976, to sharply divide the FBI and the foreign intelligence agencies. The FBI would collect within the United States; the foreign intelligence agencies would collect overseas.