Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies

I continue to like shows like this less and less. Maybe it has to do with me not being an american, i'm not sure. But overall i just find that the show comes off as hypocritical propaganda. America is the good guys and everyone else is bad. Even though america is doing the exact same stuff as the other countries. I feel like i would have liked this more if it was an unbiased retelling or gave numerous sides to a story. But the premise is always the same in each episode. That america is always the good guy and can do no wrong and is morally superior to all the other countries. While failing to acknowledge that they are also in the counterintelligence business and play the same games.

Out of curiosity I watched the first episode and then couldn't stop. The USA is the most spied upon country in the world. It's no wonder we now have 16 intelligence agencies with eyes, ears & boots everywhere at all times. Being a superpower insures you will wear a huge target on your back and naturally aquire many enemies, foreign & now especially domestic. This does not mean the US can be assumed to be the most evil country by default or the most good either. Size & status are major factors in how nations are judged. Every nation on earth uses spycraft, both ways. Undeniable fact. Humanity is the underlying reason for all confidence and/or distrust issues.

It is amazing to me the process for identifying even the slightest hunch and turning it into a globally impactful outcome in the constant struggle between opposing forces. I have tremendous respect for all these professionals who use each others specific expertise to solve difficult situations. I was surprised to learn that intelligence work is mostly done from an administrative aspect, then the confirmations, operations & physical missions are completed by specific groups of field operatives and/or military forces.

I am so glad these agencies and personnel are effective and passionate about their responsibility to defend & protect the country. We are thankful to them and the production by CNN for providing this excellent series.

I don't think I can come up with enough words to fully express how important it is for voters to know about the investigations documented in this series. It does a fairly good job of demonstrating how important espionage and counter espionage work is for a nations security. As well as the legislation that enables investigations to succeed. Hearing about these cases on the news, doesn't provide the depth needed to really understand the threats that exist to the US, and the work being done to stop them. This show does a better job of doing that.

It's also interesting to me how well this show manages to be as neutral as possible. If you're like me, and often feel that CNN News has too much of a left-wing bias, then you'll be surprised by the lack of that bias in this particular TV series.

If you were a fan of shows like The FBI Files and Forensic Files, and were looking for a similar style of show to fill the void, this will likely provide your fix. The focus of the show is usually on the investigation itself. However, some episodes spend a lot of time talking about the context of why a certain suspect is important. Sometimes, the amount of time spend on context feels a bit excessive. Other times, not enough.

My only real complain about the show, is the repetition after the end of advertising segments. It gets on my nerves after awhile.

CNN so desperately tries to get somethingn interesting out of what ever information they have on these cases. Unfortunately they have exstremely little information. Repeatindly showing the same really uninteressting interview clips over and over again, makes this a true nightmare to watch.

Little real information is ever revealed or brought forward, so calling this declassifying, is true BS.

The reason that I say "misleading title" is because I watched all 3 seasons and it barely had anything to do with actual spies and spying. There were SO MANY actual spy cases they could've included but chose not to for some reason. Throughout all 3 seasons (24 episodes in total I believe) it only contained maybe 5 or 6 actual spy cases. Overall I was extremely disappointed in this series.

If you're going to title a show "declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies" MAKE IT ABOUT AMERICAN SPIES instead of filling the series with episodes that have nothing to do with spying. No idea why people gave this show a 10/10?