Do you know anyone who was asked to spy for your country?

Not exactly, but someone in my family did some work on an apt bldg, in Chicago. He was a welder, and was asked by a representative of the owner, who was a mobster, to do some decorative wrought iron welding. He did the work, but was then approached by a detective who wanted him to ask for another job, and spy on them. Lol, he declined the job and the Detective.

I don't get it. Democratic Socialists are your average Liz Warren supporter.

My cousin worked for M15 for years. He's this unassuming, lanky hippy type and they embedded him in the community in Afghanistan and Iraq.

R2 They all think the spy footage is the funniest thing ever.

Their activities including publishing pamphlets about nuclear disarmament, women’s right to abortion and about how the major centre-left party ought to preselect a candidate who was more outspoken about the Khmer Rouge. We’re all talking earnest 1970s university students with a social conscience who were studying to become qualified professionals, which they all did, not militant hippies.

But they were spied on for several years nonetheless.

Ohhhhh, I think I *do* actually know a spy. Or met one at least.

I lived in DC. At a party, I met a (straight I assume) guy who was a friend of a mutual friend and we were chatting and I asked him what he did for a living. He looked at me without even the slightest hint of dishonesty in his expression and said "I work on K St".

Ok.

In DC, "working on K St," or just saying "I work on K St" is pretty much code for "I'm a political lobbyist".

Later, weeks later, I was at our mutual friend's place and we were talking about the party and I mentioned meeting her friend and I said "yeah, he told me he was a lobbyist but I didn't ask for who because I was afraid of finding out how he was a terrible person who lobbied for guns for the blind or something."

She kind of stared at me strangely then half whIspered "He's not a lobbyist". I could already tell something weird was going on and I said "no, he told me he was a lobbyist" (I don't think I told her that what he actually said was "I work on K St")

She looked over at her husband and they had some weird mental telepathy conversation and didn't say a word to one another but reached some type of agreement, and she turned back to me and said in the most hushed tone "[italic]He works for the CIA[/italic] "

I asked "Is he an agent? Is he a SPY?!" and all she said was "we don't know what he does"

I'd met other guys in DC that told me flat out they worked for the CIA and I always assumed that they had some non-clearance job or else they wouldn't be telling me that.

And then I walked around DC for the next 3 months half expecting a white van to pull up and rendition me! 😂

I'm about 99% sure he was an agent and a spy. Never met him again. Can't even recall his name.

A college friend was vague about her fathers occupation. Federal government and he left home for months at a time.

He retired and she fessed up many years later. He went to Greenland or Iceland and watched (on radar, I assume) for Russian subs and such.

R1 I think your family member was wise. Let the po po risk their own kneecaps spying on the mob!

Boris, go to bed. You're drunk

My aunt Natasha.

My childhood babysitter later became a spy for the CIA.

I had these two older cousins. One worked for the Con Ed electric company. The other one was in the Army back when the BErlin Wall was u0p and we had the Berlin Airlift. The one who worked for the Electric was a supervisor who had to cooperate with the FBI when they were tracking somebody and had to find out where they were. Don't ask me why or how. And the GI had top secret security clearance so he could drive a truck and "materials" through "checkpoint Charlie" in Berlin. Other than that, no spies.

My mother's family were German immigrants. Great Grandmother came over, etc. So she was second generation during WW II. They lived in the Midwest. When my mother and her sisters and their friends got together to for a social club they were visited by the FBI and "investigated" to determine if they were subversive. Which I personally find laughable.

I dated a guy a thousand years ago that to this day, I don't know if he was a spy or a drug dealer. He had multiple (Ireland, US, Canada) passports, a new apartment with nothing, I mean nothing, no utensils, plates, etc, one stick of furniture. I helped him pick out dishes and cookware. He always had money (cash) so his lack of basic possessions was not a case of economics. He was always leaving on a 'short' trips going to Cairo or Seoul or Geneva, etc. (I saw the airplane tickets). I never got a straight answer from him on his occupation. The sex was good but I never was totally comfortable with the situation and stopped seeing him. To this day I still don't know what he was- drug dealer or spy (or witness protection)

How much time do you have?

Don’t spy for me Argentina

Definitely not a spy for the CIA, but my dad was an electrical engineer that worked for the phone company. He worked a desk job, but if there was a problem that a technician couldn't handle, he'd have to put on a hard hat and climb a telephone pole to figure out what was wrong. This was back in the 80's when phones were probably still largely analog instead of digital (and I remember him telling me about how the whole phone business was changing because of new technology called "fiber optics").

He'd get police and FBI warrants to tap people's phones, and since it was before digital, he couldn't do it from a computer. He'd literally climb up a pole with a bright orange handset and literally TAP into the line. I know he despised doing it, but he was an engineer and a manager and it wasn't something the police or phone company would let a technician do. So he had to do it.

Later on he somehow ended up with this weird position at the phone company where whenever there was a lawsuit against them that had to do with equipment, he'd have to be the phone companies expert witness. And I know he hated doing that too because he always thought that lawyers were dumb and asked the stupidest questions.

Two, actually, both CIA. One was in Italy, posing as a Goodyear executive in Turin. The other was the station chief in Paris who arranged the delivery of Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan during the Russian occupation of the country in the 1970’s. We called him Chuck of Arabia.

Most of the DSA people I know do not like Liz Warren, R2.

A friend from university had a graduate position for the Department of Foreign Affairs.

He was sent to embassies in Palestine, Korea, Romania and Japan.

I’m pretty sure most diplomats are spies.

I don't but anyone who knows lots of languages and looks pretty ordinary is probably suspect.

What R2 said. Democratic Socialists aren't "spies." OP is yet another right wing troll spreading propaganda.

R20, you're a moron.

Well I'm in the DSA and I love Liz Warren, R18. Maybe you need to get out more.

This thread is a hot mess.

[quote] My mother's family were German immigrants. Great Grandmother came over, etc. So she was second generation during WW II. They lived in the Midwest. When my mother and her sisters and their friends got together to for a social club they were visited by the FBI and "investigated" to determine if they were subversive. Which I personally find laughable.

And were there asked to spy for the country?

[quote] Well I'm in the DSA

lol. Dummy.

R5 Similar things happened to me when I lived in DC. I got in with a group that included the DC gay elite - politics, lobbying, science, the Arts and finance. Years later after I had moved away, I was drinking with the guy who introduced me to the scene. I told him I suspected a certain mutual friend was a spy. He laughed loud and hard. And he said, "my dear, half the people at my parties were spies." That's DC for you.

R22 It was a joke.

It’s 100% true r21.