So are we supposed to be surprised that a bureaucracy continues unabated? Do any Americans suppose that the US is NOT doing essentially the same thing in Russia. One had better hope that this is ongoing as just like satellites, intimate knowledge of another country that has a formidable presence keeps accidents of misunderstandings to the minimum. Remember how the miserable crypto fascist Bush era brought two tentative superpowers close to renewing the cold war. Knowing on the ground for both nations prevents such debacles and saves everyone a lot of money better spent on peace and not on more and more complex military. I was not surprised to see Putin bragging about his new fighter jets. He is of the old guard after all even if he tries to act as if he were of the new generation. One wonders what one can use a fighter jet for anyway other than to flog it to their friends and fools. Spies such as these are much like the fighter jets that both nations feel the need to brag with but are no different and mostly useless but espionage is a cheap tool of the military minded trade and if they luck out and hit gold as it were with a new insight into the other nation the occasional embarrassment is worth it. Funny thing is that the US is so loose with its secrets it seems, one can just go on the internet and find out more or less just what is going on. I suspect the Russians have just started to figure that out. One can only shake one's head at the Russian who said that the RSA came before his children. That in a nutshell is very sad and forlorn. I hope those kids are treated like Americans in spite as that is all that they no doubt know.

Yes, we certainly do the same thing. I was on a riverboat trip between Moscow and St. Petersburg last year when we had the misfortune to dock at some phony baloney Russian tourist hell that had been generously financed by Pat Robertson's minions. When you have a situation like this in Russia, it's low hanging fruit for anyone in the US intel community. Who knows what valuable information might be collected from Russian tour boats?

To me, this whole thing is ho hum, business as usual.

This whole story is one sick joke! The idea that these people were any danger at all to out nation is also a joke.

People at the CIA simply needed to make up a reason, to legitimize their existence. Since the demise of the cold war, this organization has become redundant.