Russian agents hardly spied

The US has uncovered eleven suspected Russian agents. However the daily The Irish Times doubts whether they are really spies: "To date little in the public accounts suggests that the penetration was any more serious than the outer circles of the political chattering class; the damage little more than gossip. The charges of 'conspiracy to act as unregistered agents of a foreign government' - rather than of spying - reflect as much. The legislation is more usually used to deal with unregistered lobbyists and more than one commentator has rightly asked if there is anything that the Russians learned that an analyst couldn't have picked up by trolling the internet? Smiley would hardly recognise it as spying."

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