Nearly every country has very strict laws concerning espionage, and the penalty for being caught is often severe. Counterintelligence operatives can feed false information to enemy spies, protecting important domestic secrets and preventing attempts at subversion. In times of crisis, spies can also be used to steal technology and to sabotage the enemy in various ways. They can also find dissidents within the enemy's forces and influence them to defect. Spies can bring back all sorts of information concerning the size and strength of an enemy army. One of the most effective ways to gather data and information about an enemy is by infiltrating the enemy's ranks. Spying involving corporations is known as industrial espionage. It is crucial to distinguish espionage from intelligence gathering, as the latter does not necessarily involve espionage, but often collates open-source information.Įspionage is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern, however the term is generally associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies primarily for military purposes.
It is a subset of intelligence gathering, which otherwise may be conducted from public sources and using perfectly legal and ethical means. Espionage is inherently clandestine, as it is taken for granted that it is unwelcome and, in many cases illegal and punishable by law. Freebase (0.00 / 0 votes) Rate this definition:Įspionage or spying involves a government or individual obtaining information considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information.
0 kommentar(er)
