In this week's SpyTalk podcast, cohost Jeanne Meserve talks with Hoover Institution cyber expert Amy Zegart, author of the forthcoming Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. In a dramatic narrative of espionage history—and the widespread misunderstandings about it— from Revolutionary times to the present, Zegart posits that cyberspace is, “in many ways, the ultimate cloak-and-dagger battleground, where nefarious actors employ deception, subterfuge, and advanced technology for theft, espionage, and information warfare.” To help combat adversaries’ cyber assaults on America and other Western democracies, Zegart urges U.S. spy agencies to more aggressively augment espionage ops with open source intelligence-gathering and analysis.

Meanwhile, in light of some recent CIA sex predator scandals, I ask Mark Olshaker, coauthor of the wildly popular Mindhunter books with famed former FBI profiler John Douglas, whether the agency has a vetting and security problem. No more so than society at large, Olshaker tells me, but CIA operators are uncommonly skilled at keeping their crimes a secret.

Come listen in. And subscribe here: https://link.chtbl.com/SpyTalk so you won’t miss a show. And please do follow me and Jeanne online. We tweet about a lot of things in our corners of the national security world.

Thanks!