Staying Secret in the Age of Social Media

Posted: July 19th, 2017

By Mark Kelton

Mark Kelton retired from CIA as a senior executive with 34 years of experience in intelligence operations including serving as CIA’s Deputy Director for Counterintelligence. He is a partner at the FiveEyes Group; a member of the Board of Trustees of Valley Forge Military Academy and College; member of the National Security Advisory Board of the MITRE Corp.; member of the Day & Zimmermann Government Services Advisory Board; member of the Siemens Government Technologies Federal Advisory Board; and a member of the Board of BigMediaTV.

Intelligence officers must often use a false identity — a legend or cover. How has social media and digital technology changed how they create and preserve these cover identities, and what have counterintelligence units traditionally looked for when trying to identify foreign spies? The Cipher Brief’s Levi Maxey spoke with Mark Kelton, the former deputy director for counterintelligence at the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, about challenges in establishing cover and operational security in the digital age.

TCB: Intelligence officers often enter a foreign country under diplomatic cover while working from their embassy. Could you talk about how you might discover whether they are spies or not?

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