America's woes are a foreign adversary's spy recruitment dream

Contrary to what James Bond would have you believe, most international espionage is less "whizzing bullets" and more "convincing people to tell you things they shouldn't." By this metric, foreign adversaries are salivating over the Trump administration's mass layoffs in the federal government, creating fertile ground for disgruntled workers. Clandestine organizations are hoping that resentment will convince some to share America's most closely guarded secrets — in other words, to be recruited as spies.

'Everyone is vulnerable'

China's intelligence services are using "deceptive efforts to recruit current and former U.S. government employees," said The New York Times, citing a warning from the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. The Trump-led slashing of the federal workforce has been taken as an "opportunity" for China to build upon its preexisting recruitment efforts, as the White House "shuts down agencies, fires probationary employees and pushes out people who had worked on diversity issues."

America's "foreign adversaries" are "actively targeting federal workers" for clandestine recruitment in the "wake of continuing mass government layoffs," the United States Coast Guard announced on March 31. China, Russia and others are focusing on "recently fired probationary workers, or those with security clearances" in the hopes of obtaining "valuable information about U.S. critical infrastructure or national security interests."

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"Everyone is vulnerable at the end of the day," said one Coast Guard Counterintelligence Service agent. The cohort of laid off federal workers is a "target-rich environment" for "foreign-linked entities," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) in response to the Coast Guard's alert. Moreover, government employees who "see how careless" the Trump administration has been with its secure communications "may do the same."

'Fake consulting and headhunting firms'

While the United States has "established procedures" designed to "mitigate the risk posed by aggrieved former employees" in general, the "pace of the job losses" under Trump makes it "more difficult" for intelligence agencies to prevent and address foreign espionage recruitment, Politico said. "Beijing especially" is behind an "unrelenting espionage campaign."

A "secretive Chinese tech firm" is believed to be responsible for a "broader network of fake consulting and headhunting firms targeting former government employees and AI researchers," said Reuters, citing research from Foundation for Defense of Democracies analyst Max Lesser. While following basic techniques associated with Chinese intelligence agencies, the campaign is "significant" for seeking to "exploit the financial vulnerabilities" of recently laid-off federal employees. Once hired by the China-linked network, targets could "share increasingly sensitive information about government operations" or even "recommend additional people" for unknowing recruitment. In at least one instance, the Coast Guard said, a suspected espionage agent was "instructed to create a company profile on LinkedIn, post a job listing and actively track federal employees who indicated they were 'open for work.'"