“Breach” Movie Review Essay Example

become a professional who was able to convince his seniors and evade the bureaucratic system. 2: US Department of Justice, Commission for Review of FBI Security Programs (Webster Commission), A Review of FBI Security Programs, 31 Mar 2002.USDOJ, OIG Report, 15.

In reality, agent Philip is considered as the most damaging unites states FBI agent who many at times did voluntary services especially in spying for the Moscow intelligence services. It is not surprising to find out that agent Philip often did not agree to disclose his real employer or which agency he worked for.it was his belief that he was the best of all the spies and additionally could play the hiding game of being multiple agents and consequently compromised. Normally, Philip made rules as well as plans and strategies to be able to act as multiple agents especially for the Federal Bureau as well as the Russian government without being caught or even being noticed by the other FBI agents who had infiltrated the other agencies genuinely.

As a result of his ability and skills to be perfect at his spy work for a long period, many questions have been raised. Still no answer has been found as to the reason of one agent, agent Philip, being able to avoid any detection as multiple agents by the agencies for more than twenty years. Although there have been many attempts by the television to uncover the mystery as to why the special agent could not be caught after such a long time in the FBI unit and worse is the fact that he had risen to great ranks before he was finally arrested, they bit a

dead end and resolved to no answer at allfootnoteRef:3. 3: Many of the details of this case were published in the unclassified US Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General report, A Review of the FBI’s Performance in Deterring, Detecting, and Investigating the Espionage Activities of Robert Philip Hanssen, August 2003. Fuller accounts were published in Secret and Top Secret versions.

For this reason, the movie Breach which was produced in 2007 by the director Billy Ray tried to answer the same question had had disturbed the citizens. However, the film only shows the last two months of agent Philip Hansen multiple agent life. The movie starts with the agent coming to a special microscope that carries out most of the investigation. There are different authors who had recorded the life of the mole, agent Hessen for instance, David Wise, who was also a fruitful CIA agent and apparently worked hand in hand with the FBI agency to uncover the long and probably undetectable mole in the agency. The Author David Wise had a managed to get a file that contained some of the operational files that talked about the mole, though by then not clearly identified in the agency. Moreover, the file showed evidence of a mole in the agency having a short phone talk with the Soviet state intelligence services which was in audio format in the year 1986.Also, there were two finger prints of the mole which were gotten form the plastic garbage bag used by the mole to fold the information delivered to the Moscow intelligence services. The file did not exclude some letters which agent Philip, by then not discovered

as a mole, had written between the year 1985 and 1988. Additionally, the author David Wise had estimated that the information price was sold at about seven million dollarsfootnoteRef:4. 4: David Robarge et al., “Intelligence in Recent Public Media, The Good Shepherd,” Studies in Intelligence 51, no. 1 (2007).

As the saying goes that the days of a thief are numbered, it did not take a long period of time before special agent Philip was discovered as been the mole by the agency.it was surprising to find that the special agent Philip, who had for a long time worked for the Bureau, for over two decades, was the one responsible for the failures of the many operations carried out against the Soviets as well as the Russians intelligence services by the United States FBI. It was also surprising to find out that the so suspected CIA agent, who apparently had suffered a counterespionage investigation for a period of half a decade had not been guilty all these years.

According to a report that was filed by DOJ IG, stated that the FBI agency has so much concentrated on the mole at CIA to the point of forgetting the special agent who was the mole. The FBI had gone to a point of even carrying out full day surveillance on the CIA specialist and even gone to the extent of carrying out raids which were eventually unfruitful as nothing was connected to the specialist being a molefootnoteRef:5 5: David Robarge et al., “Intelligence in Recent Public Media, The Good Shepherd,” Studies in Intelligence 51, no. 1 (2007).

Later the FBI discovered that the evidence stated above could only file

charges against agent Philip, which were minor and truly he did not deserve this for being a traitor. For them to be able to gather enough evidenced they lured him from Moscow, that is the united stated department to the FBI by creating an information assurance department where they made him the senior-most chief. This together with other benefits such as a waiver to continue working for the agency even after his retirement period reached attracted him. However what he did not know that this was one the spy games as the first technical employee of the department O’Neil was playing the same game and reporting agent Philips daily activities to the FBI agency chief.

This is a no different scenario in the Breach movie as Ryan, who is acting as O’Neil is assigned a different assignment to work in one of the chief’s office and report every activity the senior does. However in the movie, the actor O’ Neil was to report not the traitor activities but the bad sexual behavior that was believed that Hanssen portrayed and as a result would be shameful to the Bureau. The movie shows the cruel treatment that O’Neil receives at his work place when he first reported as we see he is commanded to referee to Robert as BOOS or rather SIR. On the other hand, O’Neil is seen as a minor clerk, one of the junior titles in the FBI.

Nonetheless, with time, the senior Robert Phillips comes to a consensus with his junior because of the similar interest they share in the field of innovation as well as technology. Additionally, they shared an interest in the catholic

matters. To some point, agent Robert even starts showing his junior O’ Neil some of the restricted places that contain highly classified information. Though a fictional conversation is held between the two, that is the senior executive as well as the junior clerk; it gives an illustration of what went on during the actual investigation of the FBI agent as a mole in the BureaufootnoteRef:6. 6: Ray et al. 2016

It need no prove that even the hunted mole, Agent Robert back then was aware of the investigative exercise the Bureau performed all in the aim of getting the mole, though mistakenly thought that the mole was CIA and not their special agent.In December 1995, agent Robert Phillip who had access to FBI records managed to alter them by creating many unpermitted probes in the database.

The director of the FBI in the movie is the one in charge of running the hunt for the mole in the Bureau. The director of the bureau is called Lois Freeh. All in the aim of arresting former spy and special agent Robert in an act of espionage, the clerk is ordered to get a tangible evidence even though according to O’Neil his boss was clean and there he too believed it. To do this, the bureau made a strategy to infiltrate a search in special agents Robert car, while his junior kept him busy by fetching information from Palm Pilot. Furthermore, other FBI agents were assigned with the task of planting a listening device in agent Hansen’s car so that they could keep track of all the conversation going on.
However, it comes to the realization of Hanssen that there

is some interference that is present in his car due to the radio which makes him more suspicious. Worse enough he goes on and tell his junior O’Neill that he believes that the Soviets, as well as the Russian agencies, are searching for him. This is also in his realization that a short time before he goes for retirement, the FBI puts him in a managerial position that is significantly isolated. During the investigation, special Agent tries to communicate with the Russian Intelligence informing them that he will no longer provide information. Nonetheless, O’Neil restores Hansen’s confidence by assuring him that he is right that the Russians are trailing him and just like in the actual world, a special agent is arrested in the act of espionage when he tried to release the last and final stolen information.

Bibliography

1. C. Smith, 2004, 301. Inside: A Top G-Man Exposes Spies, Lies, and Bureaucratic Bungling Inside the FBI. Nashville, TN: Nelson Current, 2004, 301.
2. David Wise. SPY: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America. New York: Random House, 2003. Reviewed in Hayden Peake, “The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf,” Studies in Intelligence 48, no. 3 (2003)
3. Many of the details of this case were published in the unclassified US Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General report, A Review of the FBI’s Performance in Deterring, Detecting, and Investigating the Espionage Activities of Robert Philip Hanssen, August 2003. Fuller accounts were published in Secret and Top Secret versions.
4. US Department of Justice, Commission for Review of FBI Security Programs (Webster Commission), A Review of FBI Security Programs, 31 Mar 2002.USDOJ, OIG Report, 15.
5. See David Robarge
   

et al., “Intelligence in Recent Public Media, The Good Shepherd,” Studies in Intelligence 51, no. 1 (2007).