Germany arrests British diplomat suspected of spying for Russia | Hacker News Reader

Germany arrests British diplomat suspected of spying for Russia

bbc.co.uk

59 pointsbaybal233 comments

Not a diplomat. This was a contractor, a locally hired brit rather than a civil servant brought from the uk. He may be a spy, but he doesnt have dimplomatic immunity. These distinctions matter.

It looks like he worked as a security guard and may have shared security-related material. I doubt he had wide access to anything properly classified/dangerous. At 57, he was probably looking at retirement and wanted money. (Russia doesnt pay much;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Delisle

This guy, who had access to very classified material, reputably was paid about 3000/month.

I guess if we now know for sure that he was not even close to diplomatic affairs, it warrants a headline update.

The article says "the man is not thought to have diplomatic immunity". That would mean "not a diplomat". So yes, please fix the headline.

Can we have an admin assist with that?

That seems awkward. Shouldn’t the British diplomat be spying for Britain?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent

The joke is that a diplomat spying on their host country on behalf of their parent country is expected behavior; it’s only awkward if you get caught. There are polite ways of dealing with that, usually by declaring them persona non grata and asking them to leave.

Spying on your host country on behalf of someone else though, that gets you arrested.

I find it so strange to punish the diplomat in that case rather than the the parent country, — though I assume it will sour relationships.

I doubt the diplomat had much of a say in it.

Are spies in general treated as prisoners of war, I wonder, or are they simply treated as criminals and punished to the fullest extent for breaking the host country's laws.

> I find it so strange to punish the diplomat in that case rather than the the parent country, — though I assume it will sour relationships.

It might have a slight negative impact on relations, but the overall relation between the two countries is much bigger, so relatively it makes less of an impact.

In any case, by punishing the individual, they make it harder for the spying country to hire in the future. Especially to hire people with lots of other options.

> Are spies in general treated as prisoners of war, I wonder, or are they simply treated as criminals and punished to the fullest extent for breaking the host country's laws.

Good question. Google has some hits, eg https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul...

In general, it probably depends on lots of factors.

Aren't diplomats essentially mutually beneficial spies? They're all working at a higher level than our day to day politics.

The Anna Saccoolas debacle between the US and UK is evidence of it, and for Anna and the US it was good.

No such luck for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who the same UK government threw under the bus. Because our PM falsely implicated her as a spy in his prior role as foreign minister.

My point being - they will make the game work for themselves. The 'good' people are responsible for more evil than criminality can invent. The 'good' people are obsessed with evil.

So why are you spying and defending...

Honest question, how/why is this news article making it to the top of Hacker news?

Is this community really that interested? Or is there something nefarious going on with bots and upvotes due to Russia being involved?

I wouldn't have ever thought to suggest something like that, but read here recently on a different thread that Russia could be influencing HN through propaganda accounts. I was surprised by that, if true, how would we know? Is an article like this making it to #2 evidence?

I think its safer to assume that all major and some minor social media sites are manipulated by more than one group/agency/etc.

Doubt there is manipulation as you suggest. Your assumptions of HN demographics are being challenged instead.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting. I'm actually asking. If it's happening, how would we know?

I was surprised when I read the suggestion on the other thread. And it got me thinking, how would we know? How could we protect against it?

We don't have to protect against a thing that's not happening.

https://upvotetracker.com/post/hn/28149974 looks completely normal, the story is just interesting

I didn't realize something like this existed, thanks for sharing.

What's a bot affected post look like?

There have been some long term shifts in HN more towards the mainstream (as far as I can tell). That includes more political interest (and different distribution of political stances, too).

Reddit, for example, also had these shifts, but much more so, since they don't even try to be niche in the first place.

For some reason I doubt Russian bots are upvoting an article about Russia doing shady espionage stuff. I agree it's not particularly HN worthy though.

Maybe it's a bug. ;)

Please see the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

It wasn't intended to be an insinuation, it was an honest question about how something like that would be detected or protected against.

A sibling thread linked to an upvote tracker, which is the kind of thing I was curious about.

I want to note, the headline keeps changing:

From "Germany arrests British citizen on suspicion of espionage" to "British diplomat suspected of spying for Russia" to "British embassy worker" to just "British national"

https://www.google.com/search?q="Germany+arrests+British+dip...

Currently the full headline is "Briton suspected of spying for Russia arrested in Germany"

I guess the damage control is in full swing on the British side

> I guess the damage control is in full swing on the British side

Maybe they're changing the title as they learn more of the situation?

Turned out he wasn't a diplomat (which is also what the German media say), so I guess they corrected the title.

And why would you need damage control for an investigation you were involved in yourself?

Doesn't make sense as a comment.

> Maybe they're changing the title as they learn more of the situation?

A possibility, but we shouldn't forget that BBC is an official government broadcaster which is sometimes gets very visibly influenced by the British state despite the claim of editorial independence.

It depends what you mean by "official broadcaster". They do not officially speak for or represent the British Government in any way. The BBC is of course mainly made up of British citizens who generally have the interests of the UK in mind, but dynamically editorialising headlines at the behest of the government isn't something we've ever seen happen. It's hard to imagine how that could be done without a lot of people at the BBC knowing about it and getting upset.

No, BBC is not official. The C stands for corporation. It is a national broadcaster like PBS.

> I guess the damage control is in full swing on the British side

I don't think that's warranted? The article reports it as a 'joint operation', you can't really deny or distance yourself much from that.

This is the second time today I've seen this suggestion on HN that the UK (/HMG) is somehow 'cosy' with Russia. It seems really off to me? At least since Salisbury, sentiment has been firmly in the other direction in both parliament and popular opinion, afaict.

> This is the second time today I've seen this sentiment on HN that the UK (/HMG) is somehow 'cosy' with Russia. It seems really off to me?

The whole of EU sans the former Eastern Bloc member countries keep "playing games" with rogue states, and repressive regimes.

I think, it now goes almost automatic for them to go on the defensive now, when anything like this gets uncovered.

The UK is no longer in the EU.

I think you missed a little thing called 'Brexit'.

The language of the article also suggests that he is suspected of spying on British sensitive data, not German sensitive data, but it's not too clear.

I assume he's not a diplomat, as, as I understand it, diplomatic immunity exists exactly so that diplomats cannot be charged with such allegations, but it is sometimes a bit murky as to what personnel of embassies exactly it extends.

Diplomatic immunity exists for the benefit of other governments, not the individuals. If there’s any sort of coordination, the guest nation will waive their representatives’ immunity right before official charges are filed.

This is pretty common with developing stories. As more facts surface the story can be updated, or even withdrawn.

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