It is also one which can turn into genius quickly, like an idiot savant, once convinced of a goal. Hanssen certainly never took the FBI lightly. More than three years ago, he began repeatedly searching the FBI's Electronic Case File computer system for any references to himself, his address and his city of residence, Vienna. Back in November, he again refused to meet his handlers overseas, revealing the methodical approach that had protected him all these years. You have made it that way because of your policy.
Policies are constraints, constraints breed patterns.
Patterns are noticed. Whether Hanssen would have been caught without being betrayed may never be known. But by the time he was betrayed, his guard was slipping, if ever so slightly. In December, when the FBI had learned about Hanssen and was carrying out surveillance on his movements, the veteran FBI counterintelligence agent made a series of mistakes that marked him as a potential spy. On Dec. 12, he was seen driving four times past a park sign in Vienna that was used to signal whether the Russians had left something for him.