Espionage or spying involves a government or individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information.

Espionage is inherently clandestine, as it is taken for granted that it is unwelcome and, in many cases illegal and punishable by law.

Another significant development in U. S. law is the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (), which makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime.

Sometimes the federal anti-theft-of-government-property law is used to prosecute cases where the Espionage Act would otherwise be involved ; the theory being that by retaining sensitive information, the defendant has taken a ' thing of value ' from the government.

Espionage normally is not reconnaissance, because reconnaissance is a military force's operating ahead of its main forces ; spies are non-combatants operating behind enemy lines.

Spynet is a CBC Television children's show, which features Sam, played by Kim Schraner, as a spy operative for a fictional Canadian spy agency, the National Espionage Task-Force ( NET ).

The Espionage Act of 1917 () is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U. S. entry into World War I.

A March 1984 government report had noted that " the unauthorized publication of classified information is a routine daily occurrence in the U. S ." but that the applicability of the Espionage Act to such disclosures " is not entirely clear ".

Espionage historian Chapman Pincher obtained a copy of the letter, and used former MI5 officers Peter Wright and Arthur Martin as his main additional secret sources, to write the sensational book Their Trade is Treachery in 1981.

In the United States, this type of activity is forbidden by the Uniform Trade Secrets Act and the Economic Espionage Act of 1996.

is an overhead stealth action game ( officially promoted as a " Tactical Espionage Game ") that was originally released by Konami in for the MSX2 computer standard exclusively in Japan.

Though the legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, it was actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act.

The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage is a 1989 book written by Clifford Stoll.

( Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage ), is brought out of retirement to deal with the threat of Galaxy, a world-wide organization led by a trio of mad scientists: Doctor Krupov ( Rhys Williams ), Doctor Wu ( Peter Brocco ), and Doctor Schneider ( Benson Fong ).

Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage ( ISBN 0-06-103004-X ), published in 1998 by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew, and Annette Lawrence Drew, is a non-fiction book about U. S. Navy submarine operations during the Cold War.

According to John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, writing in their book, In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage, the historiography of Soviet and Communist studies is characterized by a split between " traditionalists " and " revisionists ".

Chapter 14, " War is the Health of the State ", covers World War I and the anti-war movement that happened during it, which was met with the heavily enforced Espionage Act of 1917.

The film is based upon the 1979 book The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage by Robert Lindsey, and features the song " This Is Not America ", written and performed by David Bowie and the Pat Metheny Group.

Phantom Girl's powers serve her well as member of the Legion's Espionage Squad, and she is involved romantically with fellow Legionnaire Ultra Boy for many years.

Espionage and intrigue were often featured instead of straightforward battles.

As part of a plea bargain, he pled guilty to one count under the Espionage Act.

Radical unionism virtually collapsed, in large part because of Federal repression during World War I by means of the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918.

The Espionage Act of 1917 made it a crime to interfere with the war effort or with military recruitment or to attempt to aid a nation at war with the U. S. Wartime violence on the part of local groups of citizens, sometimes mobs or vigilantes, persuaded some lawmakers that the law was inadequate.

After learning the language, he feigned continued difficulty as a part of a sting operation against President Chu, organized by Invisible Kid's Espionage Squad.

The Sedition Act of 1918 () was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds.

His last arrest was in 1918, when he received a 20-year sentence for " obstructing the war effort ", a violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.

Following passage of the Espionage Act of 1917, The Masses was suppressed by the U. S. government on the grounds that it was detrimental to the war effort.

The effort was also helped by the United States Congress, with the passing of the Espionage Act in 1917 and its sister act the Sedition Act of 1918.

Despite official repression, popular patriotic pressure and vigilante action against the SP of A's organization, members and press, Hillquit never wavered on the issue of intervention, staunchly backing Debs, Berger, Kate Richards O ' Hare and other socialists charged under the Espionage Act for opposing the war effort.

The US Government currently has a polygraph examination entitled the " Test of Espionage and Sabotage " ( TES, contributing to the increasingly popular, though not consensus, notion, by those studying espionage and sabotage countermeasures, of the interrelationship between the two.

Trahair and Robert Miller, Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations, 2009, published by Enigma Books, New York.

Espionage networks headed by experienced multilingual NKVD officers such as Iskhak Akhmerov were established in nearly every major Western country, including the United States.

* Clifford Stoll: The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage, an informal — and easily approachable by the non-specialist — account of a real incident ( and pattern ) of computer insecurity, ISBN 0-7434-1146-3

* American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts by Stephen M. Kohn ( 1994 ) ISBN 0-275-94415-8.

The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and on April 5 were sentenced to death by Judge Irving Kaufman under Section 2 of the Espionage Act of 1917, 50 U. S. Code 32 ( now 18 U. S. Code 794 ), which prohibits transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government information " relating to the national defense.

* Rosenberg Son: " My Parents Were Executed Under the Unconstitutional Espionage Act "— video report by Democracy Now!

Nearing authored a series of pamphlets, published by the Rand School, one of which, The Great Madness: A Victory for the American Plutocracy, resulted in his indictment under the Espionage Act for alleged " obstruction to the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States.

Kaylan and Volman contributed backing vocals to the debut album from British new wave band Espionage titled Espionage produced by Roy Thomas Baker released in 1983 by A & M records.

Section 793 of the Espionage Act was cited by Attorney General John N. Mitchell as cause for the United States to sue to bar further publication of stories based upon the Pentagon Papers.

The law was extended on May 16, 1918, by the Sedition Act of 1918 – actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act – which prohibited many forms of speech, including " any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States ... or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy ".

During the Red Scare of 1918 – 19, in response to the 1919 anarchist bombings aimed at prominent government officials and businessman, U. S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, supported by J. Edgar Hoover, then head of the Justice Department's Enemy Aliens Registration Section, used the Sedition Act, a 1918 amendment to the Espionage Act, to deport several hundred foreign citizens, including Emma Goldman, to the Soviet Union on a ship the press called the " Soviet Ark ".

A number of successful viewings have been claimed in The Ultimate Time Machine by Joseph McMoneagle and Reading the Enemy's Mind: Inside Star Gate America's Psychic Espionage Program by Paul H. Smith.

Much of the Espionage Act remains in force, although some has been struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional because of the First Amendment ( See United States v. The Progressive, Brandenburg v. Ohio, New York Times Co. v. United States ).

At a December 16, 2010 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on the subject of " the Espionage Act and the Legal and Constitutional Issues Raised by WikiLeaks ," Conyers " argue strongly against prosecuting WikiLeaks in haste-or at all.