He engaged with the foreign official “under the guise of writing research papers,” it said. The Navy described that as a tactic U.S. adversaries increasingly use to obtain both classified and unclassified document.

They’ve been doing that, for decades…

It’s hard to get someone to give up that info knowing what’s going on.

But you butter someone up about how they’re a subject matter expert and how smart they are…

And people can get talked into giving up a bunch of benign info that has a couple pieces of important stuff mixed in.

Once that method stops working, there’s a chance the other country will “come clean” and say what the person did was espionage. Then the blackmail starts.

That’s why the biggest thing they care about for clearances is: how much shame you have.

Ironically someone who really cares about other’s perception of them are going to be the ones roped into this. But if you immediately turn it in as soon as it hits that point, yeah, you fucked up. But chances are even classified shit you already disclosed was already known.

The juicy stuff needs that threat of Leavenworth if you don’t give it up.

It’s just they’re never gonna stop blackmailing you, and the longer it goes on, the more it would suck to be caught. So the more they’ll do to avoid it. When that’s hanging over someone’s head, they stop thinking rationally.

The whole thing is designed to keep them scared shitless in the moment so they stop thinking long term.