You would have thought that someone would have recognized people from a TV show, although it is possible that they did and thought it would be funny. Guard duty does that do you.

Mind you, when Bushmoron visited for the APEC summit, ASIO still screwed up, but there weren’t any dead bodies for a change! At least… none that I know about! There may have been a few ASIO staff *adjustments* after they made Howard a laughing stock Worldwide! 😉 😀 I think that was the only time I have ever cheered for ASIO! 😆 😆

The excuse was that one of the group was getting ready to leave, which makes even less sense, because they could wait and ID the replacement, as well as anyone that made contact with them.

It sounds like a “Budget Bust”, an arrest designed to impress Congress with how wonderful and necessary the FBI counter-espionage effort is, and why it needs more money. It is a sibling of election time vice raids to show how dedicated the pols in office are to “protecting the children”.

So calling them a “spy ring” is ridiculous, but I guess calling them an “income tax evasion ring” just doesn’t fall off the tongue the same way. The question is, why in the world did the FBI roll them up *now*? It’s not as if they were threatening America in some way, and if they’d been left in place, the FBI could have kept them under observation and given them the ole’ mushroom treatment if they did try to do some spying. All I can guess is that either the FBI was so inept in their observation that they got “made”, or that politics came into it. Hmm, what’s been in the news recently that the Obama administration would love to have pushed off the front page? 😈

– Badtux the Twisted Penguin

The training probably sucks today, as they seem to believe torture works, while in the old days you were taught it was a waste of time and effort. There isn’t a lot of difference between “military interrogation” and “police interviewing”, no matter what my police instructors liked to think – same basic principles in both with more paperwork in the police version because it has to go to court. Neither works with children or psychos, but, with patience, people will tell you everything. Of course, you only find out what people believe to be true, is can be different than the real truth.

Down here the white sand and water act like mirrors, which means you can burn the underside of your chin and other areas you wouldn’t think are exposed [hint: baggy swimming trunks or skirts on the beach are not a good idea.]

Yeah, the Ruskies like Sydney here for the same reasons Bryan. 😆 They have a thing for Bondi beach (and Manly). I think they watch far too much TV! 😀 Though, they really burn here! We have a higher UV index in summer. When Lady Min was here, she had brought a UV test strip thingy (sensible of her!) And it went to max even though it was overcast. 😆 She was quite surprised.. I just laughed. 😉 Yeah… mean, me! 😛

As an interrogator I can say that lack of reaction is easier to spot than a reaction. Reactions can be caused by a lot of things that may or may not be related to the questions, but a lack of reaction is pure, intentional control.

It’s the sun, which they overdue. You can see them glowing from the sunburn at dusk. The newbie Russians look like lepers for the first year, with all of the peeling and blistering.

Miami is easy for them to disappear into, and they probably find a lot of “friends” in the Cuban population, who don’t want people to know they are “friends”. 😉

There is a long history of organized crime in South Florida.

During my time in the biz, we had many re-training sessions and briefings on new and updated methods used by the various organizations such as KGB, CIA, etc. The KGB changed tactics when they learned that we had done some intense training in looking out for human *set* patterns, etc. We studied a lot of psychology and physiology in those days. 🙂 Every human alive has some uniquely identifiable *set* (behavioral pattern). We had discovered that the best way to spot a KGB agent was to watch how they reacted under certain situations. They had been trained to react (or not react) to give themselves away. Most normal people don’t have that control, so they could be spotted because they didn’t react as a *normal* person might have in a situation. 🙂 It wasn’t conclusive of course, but it narrowed the field, there were several other methods employed to narrow the field further. The KGB started retraining their field agents to react as the person they were pretending to be might be expected to react. Then, we were re-trained… etc, etc! All good fun! 😆 Many ex-spooks become psychologists, or sales trainers etc! 😀

I am sure there are still deep sleepers there and here from the old Soviet KGB. They could be your Uncle, and you’d never know it! 😉

Russian is heard all the time down here these days. Most of the time people are brought in by the fundies who are going to save the souls of the Communist atheists. Alas, the sheep leave the fold after the papers are in order and they are in the US.

I’ve done some neighborly translation at the local DMV section at the county tax office when renewing tags.

They live primarily in Pensacola and Destin in this area, but there are a large communities in Miami and Mobile. I don’t know about New Orleans.

They certainly act “hinky” as we used to say in the cop shop, not quite “reasonable suspicion to believe” but anybody with beat experience would want to have a chat and ID them. They seem to be common in Subway shops around here.