*Anna Chapman sure got a lot of flak about her weird, crappy tradecraft in New York City, but you'd have to give Anna at least a B-minus compared to this unfortunate situation.
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/05/18/tinker-taylor-compass-wig-runet-amused-by-spy-scandal/
(...)
"Fogle's arrest was filmed by the FSB and shown on Russian television. In the video [ru], Fogle is seen in an unconvincing blond wig and baseball cap, which are then removed by an FSB agent before Fogle is frogmarched into a waiting car. Fogle's “spy-kit” (which included two wigs, sunglasses, a compass, a cheap Nokia phone, an Atlas of Moscow, a Swiss army knife (((hey those are forbidden on planes and I guess for good reason))) and several envelopes of 500-euro notes) is then displayed for the cameras. Later in the video, Fogle and what appear to be three of his colleagues from the Embassy are given a dressing-down by a pixilated FSB agent. In a manner strangely reminiscent of a school headmaster scolding wayward students, the agent expresses his shock and disappointment at Fogle's attempts to recruit Russian citizens..."
(((There are Russian guys on-line who even feel sorry for Fogle and are engaging in pro American-spy pep-talks.)))
"Let's start with the most controversial item in the eyes of the average person: the common Moscow road atlas with the addresses of all the buildings in it. In the high-tech era, when everyone has a phone with GPS and good maps, it seems like an anachronism. But now consider the specifics of an agent's work, when he can leave no traces, including digital ones. I can't picture the agent who looks up the way to a secret location or a meeting place on Google Maps and then saves the route. That agent would have to be a complete idiot. Similarly, it's hard for me to imagine sending information about meeting place in electronic form, this is an additional risk [...] So you can whinge all you like about intelligence agents shunning new technologies, but it isn't the case. An effective means of leaving no traces is not to use GPS."
(((All that seems to be missing here is some Russian women admitting that Fogle is quite cute and that they'd like to have him seduce and suborn them, and I don't doubt that those women exist.)))
