Ten people have been arrested for allegedly serving as secret agents of the Russian government with the goal of penetrating the US government, the Justice Department said today. According to court papers in the case, the US government intercepted a message from Russian intelligence headquarters in Moscow to two of the defendants. The message states that their main mission is "to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US" and send intelligence reports.
The court papers cited numerous examples of communications intercepted by investigators that spelled out what the 10 were allegedly trying to do. They describe the defendants' communicating with purported Russian agents using a method not previously described in espionage cases here: by establishing a short-range wireless network between laptop computers and sending encrypted messages while the computers were near each other. (More Russia stories.)