176 Penetrating the NSA and getting access to files from its stove-piped computers was a far more difficult challenge for the SVR. Approaching CIA officers, such as Nicholson, was relatively easy because it was part of the CIA officer’s job to meet with their adversaries. NSA officers, on the other hand, did not engage in “dangles” or even attend diplomatic receptions. They had not reason, other than a sinister one, to meet with a member of the Russian intelligence service. Furthermore, unlike CIA officers who, like Nicholson, are often posted in neutral countries where they can be approached in a social context, NSA officers worked at well-guarded regional bases and are not part of the diplomatic life. Since a known employee of a foreign diplomatic mission could not even approach a NSA officer without arousing suspicion, the SVR would need to use an intermediary, called an “access agent,” whose affiliations with it were not known to the FBI. Such an operation would require establishing a network of illegals in the America, as the SVR did after Putin became President. Even them, the intermediary would have to find a plausible pretext to approach the target with revealing his actual interest. The emergence of computer networks in the 1990s greatly expanded the SVR’s recruiting horizon. It offered an opportunity to penetrate a new layer at the NSA employees: civilian technologists working under contract for the US government. Many of these civilians at the NSA, especially the younger ones, had been drawn from the hacking and game-playing culture. Some had even taken courses abroad on hacking techniques. They presented the SVR was inviting targets for recruitment. As was previously mentioned, Russian intelligence had considerable experience in Germany with hacktavists who tended to be anarchists. There were also supporters of the Libertarian movement. The common denominator was often their resentment expressed in their postings s of the United States and its allies a