Sex for secrets.

In an age dominated by digital surveillance, human desire remains of vulnerability.

Foreign intelligence agencies are still using intimacy as a tool for gathering information.

Is there a way to protect national security secrets from sex

espionage?

Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, February 26th,

2026. If trained officials with security clearances can be compromised in this way, how safe are our secrets?

For more on that, I'm now joined by USA Today, World Affairs correspondent Kim Helmgard.

It's good to speak with you, Kim.

Thanks for having me.

Can we live in an era of spy satellites, facial recognition tools, AI surveillance,

and the ability to track billions of

personal devices with all that tech. Why is something as old school and low tech as a honey

trap still being deployed? And what kinds of national secrets are adversaries trying to gain

access to through these relationships.

Yes, you're absolutely correct. I mean, the kind of mixture of secret and open source intelligence

that you mentioned is definitely at the sharp end of intelligence work, I would say.

You know, kind of current and former intelligence officers and spy chiefs say that as important as that stuff is, you know, kind of current and former intelligence officers and spy chiefs say that

as important as that stuff is, you know, the satellite stuff, the AI stuff, the human aspect

of this work, you know, interpreting the data, forming relationships on the ground, all that is

equally important and necessary. I think in the sort of public imagination, you know, spywork

is all kind of rooftop chases, you know, a man or a woman with a gun defeating an entire

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