Reply #80: There's no such thing as levels of covertness

[jmowreader]

The other two terms you hear spooks use are "licits and illicits" and "legals and illegals." I like "licits and illlicits" best.

What, exactly, is the difference?

Licits aren't "covered." Their business card says something like "CIA Station Chief" or "CIA Liaison." Licits are almost always part of the diplomatic contingent, and as such are protected under all of the international laws governing diplomatic personnel.

You're probably wondering why we'd run licits. These folks work with the host country's intelligence service when we're in a friendly nation; in an unfriendly nation they're in charge of the CIA effort there. Unfriendly nations aren't stupid: they know that every embassy, no matter who owns it, is essentially an intelligence collection post. So, since the bad guys know we're spying on them and they can't do a damn thing about it, we put a CIA supergrade in every embassy and write "I Work For The CIA So Fuck You" on their business cards.

An illicit is covered. He's a rug dealer. She's an exterminator. Something that is as far from intel work as it's possible to get...but he or she is running five hundred agents and spying on the host country's army. Because an illicit is not under the protections of the diplomatic corps, if they're caught they can be "persona non grata"ed out of the country, imprisoned, or even shot. This is what counterintelligence people do, look for illicits.