11 ms·

I'm amazed a naturalised citizen would be given so much information access. There must be significantly higher risk of naturalised citizens having loyalty to th

I'm amazed a naturalised citizen would be given so much information access. There must be significantly higher risk of naturalised citizens having loyalty to their former country or ties that can be used to manipulate them. And while these people must be valuable for their insight it seems amazing he would not be kept in more of an information bubble. Almost everything I read abut the CIA seems incompetent to some level. I know they use that line 'you only hear about our failures' but things where you see a large proportion of their actions (successful or not) like all the coups, it seems there is no oversight to quality of their work and I'm guessing decision makers are selected on confidence and ego rather than ability. I genuinely wonder if the world would be a better place, if they were scaled back and reorganised to purely focus on their primary purpose only of being intelligence source only for the president and other elected policy makers.

outworlder 9y ago
What I am amazed at is that a naturalized citizen would run the citizenship gauntlet, actually become a citizen, and then go and betray the country they presumably worked for. On the other hand, there's no effort or merit in being born at a particular geographical location.
- taneq 9y ago
  So if you were a foreign government and you wanted to place a loyal agent into a privileged position inside the CIA, how would you do it? Just have them enter the country on a tourist visa, walk up to the front door and ask for launch codes?
  - EthanHeilman 9y ago
    >So if you were a foreign government and you wanted to place a loyal agent into a privileged position inside the CIA, how would you do it? A better strategy would be to recruit someone who already has access to the information you want. Consider the difficulty in "placing a loyal agent": 1. Getting them into the country setting up a life for them, 2. Getting them through citizenship (might take five-twenty years, might never happen), 3. Getting them hired at the CIA and hoping they get sufficient clearance, 4. Getting them moved in to a role with access to the information you want. 2,3,4 all require a number of things going right, nothing going wrong and each would take many years. Success would require a large number of attempts and the successful attempts might take over a decade before you get useful intelligence. I'm not sure anything like what you suggest has ever happened, the closest I can think of is the technique of placing agents in a foreign country and having them associate with targets of interest or report back intelligence[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program
    - taneq 9y ago
      Let's say we take your alternate approach and try to find someone already in the position we want, and turn them. Who are you most likely to have leverage over: An ex-national with family still living within your reach, that you can use as leverage? Or some anonymous U.S. citizen who's been pre-selected for their loyalty by the CIA, who you'd have to first identify, then track down their family or other leverage, then coordinate a hostage situation in such a way that they wouldn't just immediately blow the whistle? I don't think either option is easy. The spy game isn't meant to be easy.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - indubitable 9y ago
      I think you're substantially understating the difficult in recruiting spies. Any mistakes there and the recruiting nation would not only end up with double agents but also expose their handles, methods of contact, etc. Perhaps the biggest issue is that you'd need, as a foreign nation, to know more about the loyalties of intelligence agents than the country they're working for. And similarly, I think you're greatly exaggerating the difficulties in obtaining US citizenship. It's a process that can take as few as 4 years. And thanks to our laws, people can simply have children in the US and they are automatic citizens. And there's the third option that sort of meets both these opposite extremes in the middle and that's simply recruiting people already within the nation. Given the reported brain drain of the US intelligence forces, getting a substantial fraction of valuable targets (computer scientists, mathematicians, engineers, etc) into positions of intelligence does not seem like it would be all that improbable. Countries like China are already at a major advantage here given the huge numbers of Chinese involved in STEM.
      - mbroncano 9y ago
        > And thanks to our laws, people can simply have children in the US and they are automatic citizens. Under which law? I thought this was debunked time and time again as an urban legend.
- indubitable 9y ago
  The funny thing is I would have agreed with you before I ended up in a position where such choices have meaning. I, and I suspect yourself, have never been in the least patriotic or nationalistic and always held things like 'support the home team' with disdain since, as you said, why should I particularly care if something happens to occur in the same general geographic location where I happened to be? I've spent a good deal of my life traveling away from US borders, and I'm far from pleased about the current direction of the US - and I've never been what you'd consider patriotic or nationalistic. Nonetheless, I somehow have a very different feeling towards the US than I do to any of the countries I've visited - even ones where I could now obtain citizenship if I so desired. I think country forms a bond much like family. And much like with family, many of us never even recognize that bond until you're far removed from it. By contrast, I've very much enjoyed my travels but I hold no allegiance to any of these countries - even ones I've resided in for years. I can't really explain it, since I never thought I'd feel this way. I suppose what I'm getting at is that you can't really judge, or predict, people until you've walked a decade in their shoes.
  - UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago
    Reminds me of the contrast between SF and LA. After living in SF for a year, all of a sudden, driving down Market Street, I had this overwhelming sense that I was home now. Lived in LA for a lot longer, loved the weather, but never got that feeling that I was home. My thoughts were that this is temporary, and I'm just here to make make money and leave.
- chrischen 9y ago
  I don't think the guy went into the CIA from the start with the goal of betraying. As it says in the article, he left the CIA disgruntled since his career plateaued, and most likely was offered compensation for the information he had.
tptacek 9y ago
Robert Hanssen was an nth generation white American from Chicago, the son of a cop, and he sold out intelligence operatives (who were later murdered) just for cash. Aldrich Ames: similar story.
- Gustomaximus 9y ago
  This reply seems poor logic. It feels like (apologies if I've misinterpreted) by claiming if a born citizen can turn there is no reason not to treat naturalised citizens desperately. It would be like me pointing out sober drivers that have had accidents to explain why we shouldn't limit drink driving. And I respect the ideology of once some someone is a citizen, they should have full rights. Though ideology and practicality do not always meet efficiently and in something like this I feel practicality is needed. So circling back for clarity, my point was I suspect (note, saying I suspect not know) there is higher risk of a naturalised citizen harbouring loyalty to their origin country and/or being more easily manipulated via family ties etc. This would vary by country and circumstance so is not black and white but in this situation where you know Chinese agents are very active, I find it amazing, for right or wrong, an agency would take that chance. And with hindsight, this is a very correct view.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    The poor logic is your unfounded assumption that naturalized citizens are somehow more prone to this type of crime than citizens by birth. If you want to assert that, you'll need to back it up with evidence. Until you do, there's no reason to assume it -- if anything, one could flip your logic around and claim that birth citizenship should correlate with higher risk since a born citizen didn't have to do anything to "earn" it and so doesn't value their citizenship/country as much as someone who had to put in significant effort and jump through a lot of hoops to get naturalized.
    - shard 9y ago
      This is similar to the situation where some people notices that born again Christians are more religious than people who've been Christians their whole lives. And this makes sense on some level, to have to actively seek out membership (religious or national) implies a greater degree of effort or commitment than someone who has never known non-membership.
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
There are naturalized citizens everywhere in our security agencies. Many from former and current adversaries. They are full citizens. If they pass the background check they are entitled to the same privileges as any other citizen.
- joering2 9y ago
  Trust me you won't get TOP clearance if you are natcit (naturalized US citizen), only if you are soil-based citizen (actually born on the US soil)
  - xxpor 9y ago
    What? This entire story is about the exact scenario you describe.
  - xrayzerone 9y ago
    Trust me - you are 100% completely wrong.
- sevenfive 9y ago
  A job is not (just) a privilege.
  - xrayzerone 9y ago
    A job in an intelligence organization requiring a high level security clearance IS a privilege. As a leader in an organization I worked for used to say, "You earn your place here every day." And plenty of naturalized citizens have earned their place.
    - sevenfive 9y ago
      Yeah, that's inspiring and all, but if you have a domestic and a naturalized candidate for the job who are both equally qualified, and the naturalized one has a 10% higher chance of being turned, just go with domestic right? Might not be "fair" to the naturalized candidate who worked hard to get where he was but fairness is not always the priority. Reminds me of the diversity debate at Google where google jobs are talked about like some kind of award or trophy of excellence and not just selling your labor to Google
dis-sys 9y ago
now you have a problem - your first lady is a naturalised citizen
godelmachine 9y ago
"decision makers are selected on confidence and ego rather than ability" - That was spot on!
qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
Dual agent
walshemj 9y ago
Me to I would assume to be a CIA officer you would have the be a naturalborn citizen at least. I am fairly sure that in the UK both your parents if not grandparents have to be citizens.
- Bedon292 9y ago
  The only citizenship requirement for a clearance in the US is that you personally are a citizen. There is no distinguishing between naturalized and natural born on that requirement. Though you will likely have a harder time on the background check as naturalized, since you will have more foreign contacts which you are supposed to report.
willstrafach 9y ago
It is not so surprising. A naturalized citizen from that country of origin would probably have a much easier time dealing with assets in the region than a white American.
UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago
I share your amazement. There are lots of reasons people might 'turn' assuming these aren't long term espionage assets. From what I've read, the real reasons are mostly banal and extremely petty at their core, but of course they always use some higher principle to justify their actions. Then again, I am always amazed at certain types of immigrants who come over with an attitude of entitlement and national pride for the countries they just left because, frankly those countries sucked, or they wouldn't be here. I'm actually a naturalized citizen myself, came over as an infant. I can't even begin to imagine the nerve or some immigrants who display their national flags in their windows or outside their homes. It was my parents view, and one which I share, that we came over to become Americans, not to become XYZ-Americans. It has always given me a certain perspective to life in that no matter how bad things from time to time seem, all I have to do, is think about the alternate universe where my parents chose to stay, and how incredibly bad my life would have been. For that I'm forever grateful to this country. So yeah, it's a very alien concept to me as well.
- samirillian 9y ago
  No weirder than hanging an American flag outside one's house. "Oh don't mind my little totem there. Yeah, no, I'm too tribal to recognize the absurdity of this practice."
  - UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago
    I can understand your point of view, but... ...let's pretend you are just a simple totem believing tribalist. Things become so bad in your own tribe that you leave, despite worries as to whether another tribe would ever accept you as one of their own, much less even accept you in. Thankfully, you find a tribe that is willing to take you in. After some time you decorate your hut with your last tribes totems and tattoo your children with the old tribes symbols. See, it doesn't make any sense either way... IMHO
    - sangnoir 9y ago
      > Things become so bad in your own tribe that you leave That's gross over-simplification: it might have applied to you/your family, but is by no means universal.
robk 9y ago
I assume legally one cannot discriminate against naturalized citizens.
theBobBob 9y ago
Slightly different scenario, but my cousin was born in the UK and therefor was a British citizen but was also an Irish citizen through his mother. He works at big defense contractor and had to get security clearance (pretty low level one). Because of his dual citizenship he is not allowed to work on certain projects. I suppose it might count as exporting classified information to a foreign national or something like that.
davidmr 9y ago
A lot of the Manhattan Project scientists were naturalized citizens, including many of the greats: Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Hans Bethe, James Franck, etc.

outworlder 9y ago

What I am amazed at is that a naturalized citizen would run the citizenship gauntlet, actually become a citizen, and then go and betray the country they presumably worked for. On the other hand, there's no effort or merit in being born at a particular geographical location.

taneq 9y ago
So if you were a foreign government and you wanted to place a loyal agent into a privileged position inside the CIA, how would you do it? Just have them enter the country on a tourist visa, walk up to the front door and ask for launch codes?
- EthanHeilman 9y ago
  >So if you were a foreign government and you wanted to place a loyal agent into a privileged position inside the CIA, how would you do it? A better strategy would be to recruit someone who already has access to the information you want. Consider the difficulty in "placing a loyal agent": 1. Getting them into the country setting up a life for them, 2. Getting them through citizenship (might take five-twenty years, might never happen), 3. Getting them hired at the CIA and hoping they get sufficient clearance, 4. Getting them moved in to a role with access to the information you want. 2,3,4 all require a number of things going right, nothing going wrong and each would take many years. Success would require a large number of attempts and the successful attempts might take over a decade before you get useful intelligence. I'm not sure anything like what you suggest has ever happened, the closest I can think of is the technique of placing agents in a foreign country and having them associate with targets of interest or report back intelligence[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program
  - taneq 9y ago
    Let's say we take your alternate approach and try to find someone already in the position we want, and turn them. Who are you most likely to have leverage over: An ex-national with family still living within your reach, that you can use as leverage? Or some anonymous U.S. citizen who's been pre-selected for their loyalty by the CIA, who you'd have to first identify, then track down their family or other leverage, then coordinate a hostage situation in such a way that they wouldn't just immediately blow the whistle? I don't think either option is easy. The spy game isn't meant to be easy.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - indubitable 9y ago
    I think you're substantially understating the difficult in recruiting spies. Any mistakes there and the recruiting nation would not only end up with double agents but also expose their handles, methods of contact, etc. Perhaps the biggest issue is that you'd need, as a foreign nation, to know more about the loyalties of intelligence agents than the country they're working for. And similarly, I think you're greatly exaggerating the difficulties in obtaining US citizenship. It's a process that can take as few as 4 years. And thanks to our laws, people can simply have children in the US and they are automatic citizens. And there's the third option that sort of meets both these opposite extremes in the middle and that's simply recruiting people already within the nation. Given the reported brain drain of the US intelligence forces, getting a substantial fraction of valuable targets (computer scientists, mathematicians, engineers, etc) into positions of intelligence does not seem like it would be all that improbable. Countries like China are already at a major advantage here given the huge numbers of Chinese involved in STEM.
    - mbroncano 9y ago
      > And thanks to our laws, people can simply have children in the US and they are automatic citizens. Under which law? I thought this was debunked time and time again as an urban legend.
indubitable 9y ago
The funny thing is I would have agreed with you before I ended up in a position where such choices have meaning. I, and I suspect yourself, have never been in the least patriotic or nationalistic and always held things like 'support the home team' with disdain since, as you said, why should I particularly care if something happens to occur in the same general geographic location where I happened to be? I've spent a good deal of my life traveling away from US borders, and I'm far from pleased about the current direction of the US - and I've never been what you'd consider patriotic or nationalistic. Nonetheless, I somehow have a very different feeling towards the US than I do to any of the countries I've visited - even ones where I could now obtain citizenship if I so desired. I think country forms a bond much like family. And much like with family, many of us never even recognize that bond until you're far removed from it. By contrast, I've very much enjoyed my travels but I hold no allegiance to any of these countries - even ones I've resided in for years. I can't really explain it, since I never thought I'd feel this way. I suppose what I'm getting at is that you can't really judge, or predict, people until you've walked a decade in their shoes.
- UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago
  Reminds me of the contrast between SF and LA. After living in SF for a year, all of a sudden, driving down Market Street, I had this overwhelming sense that I was home now. Lived in LA for a lot longer, loved the weather, but never got that feeling that I was home. My thoughts were that this is temporary, and I'm just here to make make money and leave.
chrischen 9y ago
I don't think the guy went into the CIA from the start with the goal of betraying. As it says in the article, he left the CIA disgruntled since his career plateaued, and most likely was offered compensation for the information he had.

tptacek 9y ago

Robert Hanssen was an nth generation white American from Chicago, the son of a cop, and he sold out intelligence operatives (who were later murdered) just for cash. Aldrich Ames: similar story.

Gustomaximus 9y ago
This reply seems poor logic. It feels like (apologies if I've misinterpreted) by claiming if a born citizen can turn there is no reason not to treat naturalised citizens desperately. It would be like me pointing out sober drivers that have had accidents to explain why we shouldn't limit drink driving. And I respect the ideology of once some someone is a citizen, they should have full rights. Though ideology and practicality do not always meet efficiently and in something like this I feel practicality is needed. So circling back for clarity, my point was I suspect (note, saying I suspect not know) there is higher risk of a naturalised citizen harbouring loyalty to their origin country and/or being more easily manipulated via family ties etc. This would vary by country and circumstance so is not black and white but in this situation where you know Chinese agents are very active, I find it amazing, for right or wrong, an agency would take that chance. And with hindsight, this is a very correct view.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  The poor logic is your unfounded assumption that naturalized citizens are somehow more prone to this type of crime than citizens by birth. If you want to assert that, you'll need to back it up with evidence. Until you do, there's no reason to assume it -- if anything, one could flip your logic around and claim that birth citizenship should correlate with higher risk since a born citizen didn't have to do anything to "earn" it and so doesn't value their citizenship/country as much as someone who had to put in significant effort and jump through a lot of hoops to get naturalized.
  - shard 9y ago
    This is similar to the situation where some people notices that born again Christians are more religious than people who've been Christians their whole lives. And this makes sense on some level, to have to actively seek out membership (religious or national) implies a greater degree of effort or commitment than someone who has never known non-membership.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

There are naturalized citizens everywhere in our security agencies. Many from former and current adversaries. They are full citizens. If they pass the background check they are entitled to the same privileges as any other citizen.

joering2 9y ago
Trust me you won't get TOP clearance if you are natcit (naturalized US citizen), only if you are soil-based citizen (actually born on the US soil)
- xxpor 9y ago
  What? This entire story is about the exact scenario you describe.
- xrayzerone 9y ago
  Trust me - you are 100% completely wrong.
sevenfive 9y ago
A job is not (just) a privilege.
- xrayzerone 9y ago
  A job in an intelligence organization requiring a high level security clearance IS a privilege. As a leader in an organization I worked for used to say, "You earn your place here every day." And plenty of naturalized citizens have earned their place.
  - sevenfive 9y ago
    Yeah, that's inspiring and all, but if you have a domestic and a naturalized candidate for the job who are both equally qualified, and the naturalized one has a 10% higher chance of being turned, just go with domestic right? Might not be "fair" to the naturalized candidate who worked hard to get where he was but fairness is not always the priority. Reminds me of the diversity debate at Google where google jobs are talked about like some kind of award or trophy of excellence and not just selling your labor to Google

dis-sys 9y ago

now you have a problem - your first lady is a naturalised citizen

godelmachine 9y ago

"decision makers are selected on confidence and ego rather than ability" - That was spot on!

qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago

Dual agent

walshemj 9y ago

Me to I would assume to be a CIA officer you would have the be a naturalborn citizen at least. I am fairly sure that in the UK both your parents if not grandparents have to be citizens.

Bedon292 9y ago
The only citizenship requirement for a clearance in the US is that you personally are a citizen. There is no distinguishing between naturalized and natural born on that requirement. Though you will likely have a harder time on the background check as naturalized, since you will have more foreign contacts which you are supposed to report.

willstrafach 9y ago

It is not so surprising. A naturalized citizen from that country of origin would probably have a much easier time dealing with assets in the region than a white American.

UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago

I share your amazement. There are lots of reasons people might 'turn' assuming these aren't long term espionage assets. From what I've read, the real reasons are mostly banal and extremely petty at their core, but of course they always use some higher principle to justify their actions. Then again, I am always amazed at certain types of immigrants who come over with an attitude of entitlement and national pride for the countries they just left because, frankly those countries sucked, or they wouldn't be here. I'm actually a naturalized citizen myself, came over as an infant. I can't even begin to imagine the nerve or some immigrants who display their national flags in their windows or outside their homes. It was my parents view, and one which I share, that we came over to become Americans, not to become XYZ-Americans. It has always given me a certain perspective to life in that no matter how bad things from time to time seem, all I have to do, is think about the alternate universe where my parents chose to stay, and how incredibly bad my life would have been. For that I'm forever grateful to this country. So yeah, it's a very alien concept to me as well.

samirillian 9y ago
No weirder than hanging an American flag outside one's house. "Oh don't mind my little totem there. Yeah, no, I'm too tribal to recognize the absurdity of this practice."
- UnhelpfulYoda 9y ago
  I can understand your point of view, but... ...let's pretend you are just a simple totem believing tribalist. Things become so bad in your own tribe that you leave, despite worries as to whether another tribe would ever accept you as one of their own, much less even accept you in. Thankfully, you find a tribe that is willing to take you in. After some time you decorate your hut with your last tribes totems and tattoo your children with the old tribes symbols. See, it doesn't make any sense either way... IMHO
  - sangnoir 9y ago
    > Things become so bad in your own tribe that you leave That's gross over-simplification: it might have applied to you/your family, but is by no means universal.

robk 9y ago

I assume legally one cannot discriminate against naturalized citizens.

theBobBob 9y ago

Slightly different scenario, but my cousin was born in the UK and therefor was a British citizen but was also an Irish citizen through his mother. He works at big defense contractor and had to get security clearance (pretty low level one). Because of his dual citizenship he is not allowed to work on certain projects. I suppose it might count as exporting classified information to a foreign national or something like that.

davidmr 9y ago

A lot of the Manhattan Project scientists were naturalized citizens, including many of the greats: Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Hans Bethe, James Franck, etc.