American security experts fear that growing networks of foreign spies, combined with new technology, represent an unprecedented threat—one the FBI, the primary agency tasked with thwarting hostile foreign intelligence services, may struggle to address.
“Look at what the Ukrainians are doing with drones and AI against Russia,” says national-security analyst Paul Joyal. “I know our adversaries are watching.”
Yet as these dangers have mounted, the White House has proposed slashing the FBI’s budget by more than $500 million and has shifted the bureau’s priorities away from combating spies and other forms of foreign influence. Under Director Kash Patel, the FBI has moved people and power out of the bureau’s headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington and into the heartland. He reassigned nearly a quarter of all agents to a job that’s never been part of the FBI’s purview, immigration enforcement, according to data obtained from the bureau by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat. Counterintelligence specialists with deep expertise in countries like China, Russia, and Iran are now regularly working immigration cases on a rotating basis, according to former agents who recently left the bureau. The FBI has also limited investigations of crimes like violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), allowing foreign spies greater room to maneuver.
The end result of these changes, former senior FBI officials maintain, is that America is extremely vulnerable—not just to an attack, but to an unprecedented level of foreign espionage.
“It’s a disaster,” says Robert Anderson, the head of FBI counterintelligence from 2012 to 2014. “I’m rooting for everybody because we’re all Americans, [but] Patel needs to wake up.”
Bessette/Pitney’s AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS: DELIBERATION, DEMOCRACY AND CITIZENSHIP reviews the idea of "deliberative democracy." Building on the book, this blog offers insights, analysis, and facts about recent events.