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Obtaining foreign intelligence by the employment of spies or secret agents, as opposed to obtaining it by the ‘technical means’ which have become so important since the Second World War. Diplomats themselves have always been associated with this kind of work, either because they spied themselves, hired others to do it for them, or gave shelter in diplomatic premises – under innocent-sounding titles – to spies in the secret service of their own state. (The last is the most common today.) Indeed, the acquisition of local information, by both legal and illegal means, was in general the most important of all of the functions of the first resident missions, which is why they were regarded with great suspicion and why diplomatic privileges and immunities developed only slowly. When the diplomat was described as an ‘honourable spy’, however, as was common by the seventeenth century, reference was being made only to his role in the acquisition of information by lawful means. See also diplomatic functions; humint; intelligence; Kautilya. |
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