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190 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS its sleeper agents for a highly sensitive assignment, that suggested Russian intelligence had found a possible source who could supply it with valuable information. According to a former CIA intelli- gence official who later became involved in the case, the assignment involved preparing these agents to service a potential source in the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. If true, it suggested that Russian intelligence either had found or was working on a means of pen- etrating the NSA. In 2010, the NSA division that handled such security and espio- nage threats reportedly initiated a counterespionage probe at the NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters. According to a former NSA official, “They [were] looking for one or more Russian spies that NSA [was] convinced resided at Fort Meade and possibly other DoD Intel offices, like DIA.” Because the NSA’s cryptological service had in 2010 thirty-five thousand military and civilian contractor employees, the search for a possible leak was no easy matter. According to a subse- quent note in the NSA’s secret budget report to Congress, it would require “a minimum of 4,000 periodic investigations of employees ) in position to compromise sensitive information” to safely guard © against “insider threats by trusted insiders who seek to exploit their authorized access to sensitive information to harm U.S. interests.” According to a former executive in the intelligence community, that amount of investigation far exceeded the budgetary capabili- ties of the NSA. So while the investigation found no evidence of SVR recruitment, it remained possible that Russian intelligence had found a candidate in the NSA. Meanwhile, in June 2010, to preempt such a leak in U.S. intelli- gence and avoid any potential embarrassment that could result, the FBI decided it could no longer engage in this sort of an intelligence game with the sleeper network. It arrested all twelve sleeper agents identified by Poteyev. After receiving a great deal of public atten- tion (which led to their inspiring the FX series The Americans), the sleeper agents were deported to Russia. This move had both advan- tages and disadvantages. The main advantage was that it severed any communication link between the putative person of interest in the NSA and Russian intelligence via the sleeper agents. The main dis- advantage was that it eliminated the possibility that FBI surveillance | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 190 ® 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019678