18/11/2010

Spying, nothing to brag about




"Life of spies excites the imagination by various adventures, exotic trips, luxury and everyday risk. As in the movies about James Bond. However, today the cult of spies seems to be declining: the attitude of media and society toward Bond‘s colleagues is mostly negative.

Although the roots of espionage or spying are very deep, it gained impetus only in 19th century. The role of spies has especially increased during the World War I, and the Cold War could be considered as the golden age of the military intelligence. Although today there are no global conflicts, local wars and international tension increases the importance of secret services. Though required to be more transparent and honest, these services at the same time must be more open to the society. Activities of the spies are no longer considered taboo for the media, therefore everybody must have heard about at least one scandal related to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the British Secret Intelligence Agency MI6, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) or Israeli „Mossad“.

The society‘s aspiration to influence secret governmental political spheres is mostly expressed in the struggle against terrorism when radical actions are taken against independent actors. There the intelligence plays one of the key roles. CIA is active participant of this struggle, but at the same time it is one of the most criticized agencies out of the four secret services mentioned above.  The recent CIA‘s actions shocked the public when it became aware of the methods applied in the struggle against terrorism."

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