This issue pisses me off when some people won't look beyond partisanship. They're too hung up on this "my team" versus "your team" turf battle bullshit to comprehend the big picture.

I. ESPIONAGE IS NOT ABOUT POLITICAL PARTIES.

Espionage is NOT about politics or political parties. Espionage is about other nations looking for advantages against other nations through the theft of secrets to cause physical, cultural, economic, and other damage.

A nation spying against ours doesn't give a fuck which party is in office. Their target is America and the American people. That alone should be good enough for people to not try to play politics with security breaches, but apparently that won't stop some hacks from trying.

The latest Chinese spying scandal isn't the first and it won't be the last. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein made it very clear when he announced charges today, "It's a threat to our national security and to our economic position in the world, a threat that is posed by the relentless efforts of foreign intelligence services to penetrate our security systems and steal our most sensitive military technology and information."

This threat is neither recent nor trivial. The Chinese were after our secrets in the previous administration, the administration before that, and so on. They will continue to spy on this nation in the next administration, too. Just as there have been indictments for spying in this and previous administrations there will be indictments for spies whether they're in the public or private sector. The threat to our national security will not vanish because one party or the other is in power, neither will that influence the career government workers -- WHO ARE NOT POLITICAL OPERATIVES -- entrusted with catching spies and preventing espionage.

II. ESPIONAGE IS NOT SIMPLY A MATTER OF CONTRACTORS VERSUS GOVERNMENT PAYROLL.

Security clearance protocols are IDENTICAL between government employees and contractors. Contractors have more consequences: if your company is involved in a breach, you face sanctions and possibly prosecution, and your contract can be terminated. When government employees are involved in spying, you don't sue the government, you don't end the government's contract, you don't have any recourse.

Some of the worst cases of espionage -- such as Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen -- have involved government rather than contract workers. The latest charges include a weapons systems policy analyst at the Department of Defense named Gregg W. Bergersen.

If protocols are being followed, the problem usually boils down to one of a couple things. Either an ideologically-committed employee with clearance may participate in another country's attempt to access information or someone's greed overrides one's trust and duties.

The former is what happened in the Pollard case (another government employee). Jonathan Pollard was more ideologically-committed to Israel than to the US and turned over classified information. The latter occurs more frequently, and is what led Robert Hanssen to betray our country.

Neither of those scenarios is tied directly to domestic politics. Our policy towards Israel has been very friendly yet they spy on us and were able to find someone willing to betray the US even during an administration especially cozy to Israel. Greed will continue regardless of which party is in control -- other countries will always find greedy people who have a price at which they'll betray trusts.

CONCLUSION

It's not about domestic politics, and it's not about contractors.

Ben Franklin told the Continental Congress, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." In other words, stop being a goddamn partisan long enough to see this issue for what it is -- an attack on our nation. It's an attack that transcends domestic politics. At least it should. There's plenty of room to fight about just about every other issue, but this isn't the fight you want. Because the next administration -- Democrat or Republican -- almost certainly will face the same fucking adversary on the same fucking grounds because that adversary isn't fucking around. So why are you?