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A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy. [1] Any individual or spy ring (a cooperating group of spies), in the service of a government, company, criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome.
Basic agents can be formed into groups with leaders, or report directly to the controller. Basic agents include information providers, perhaps through espionage or expertise about some local subject. Also in the basic group are "executive agents", who will kill or commit sabotage, and recruiting agents.
In espionage jargon, a mole (also called a "penetration agent", [1] "deep cover agent", "illegal" or "sleeper agent") is a long-term spy (espionage agent) who is recruited before having access to secret intelligence, subsequently managing to get into the target organization. [2]
By definition, an "agent" acts on behalf of another, whether another individual, an organization, or a foreign government. Agents can be considered either witting or unwitting, and in some cases, willing or unwilling. Agents typically work under the direction of a principal agent or a case officer.
Double agents are often used to transmit disinformation or to identify other agents as part of counter-espionage operations. They are often very trusted by the controlling organization since the target organization will give them true, but useless or even counterproductive, information to pass along.
As the name suggests, human intelligence is mostly collected by people and is commonly provided via espionage or some other form of covert surveillance. However, there are also overt methods of collection, such as via interrogation of subjects or simply through interviews.
In espionage, a sleeper agent is one who has infiltrated the target country and has "gone to sleep", sometimes for many years. The agent makes no attempt to communicate with the sponsor or any existing agents or to obtain information beyond what is public, and becomes active only upon receiving a pre-arranged signal or message from the sponsor or a fellow agent.
In the latter case, the agent may be called a lead agent or a principal agent. The latter term is also refers to access agents, who only help in recruiting. Well-managed agent relationships can run for years and even decades; there are cases where family members, children at the time their parents were recruited, became full members of the network.