ACTUALLY, it is an open secret.
Embassies are listening posts. Not just for covert extracting of information but for open, paid means.
Internet and satellite communications have overtaken the covert ways to get crucial information about a country where an embassy or consular post is situated. Some still resort to “humint,” or human intelligence — boots on the ground — whether nationals or citizens of the spying country or local accomplices, wittingly or not.
The incident in early March this year of multiple Chinese nationals arrested together with local accomplices on suspicion of “gathering personal data and tracking devices while operating vehicles containing IMSI catchers (international mobile subscriber identity), a method highlighted in investigations by the Bureau of Immigration” is a prime example.
By November 2025, China had conducted 70 total space launches this year, placing 319 payloads into orbit, and had more than 1,301 satellites in orbit.
There’s more.
China has applied to launch nearly 200,000 satellites into Earth orbit, but the move may be an attempt at merely reserving orbital space rather than a genuine effort to build the largest mega-constellation in existence. (US Space Force Space Threat Fact Sheet)
As of mid-March 2026, there are over 9,350 Starlink satellites launched into orbit, with over 9,340 currently operational. SpaceX continues to rapidly expand this low Earth orbit megaconstellation with weekly launches, frequently adding 20–25 new satellites, such as a mission on March 13, 2026, to support the increasing global internet.
But just like war, no matter how many bombs a nation unleashes into enemy territory, ground troops must follow to complete a mission, especially if regime change is the ultimate objective.
Data harvesting is a multi-trillion-dollar industry for national security and commercial purposes.
On Jan. 29, 2026, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) showed the value of commercial trade that America must monitor to keep the US not just competitive but dominant.
The US Census Bureau and BEA announced that the goods and services deficit was $56.8 billion in November, up $27.6 billion from $29.2 billion in October, revised.
Now, add visa issuance as the latest weapon of choice.
Embassies as cashiers for secrets
Consulates and embassies primarily provide overt consular services and represent the home nation (ambassadors, consular officers), but they are also used for covert actions, i.e., monitor communications, house intelligence harvesting equipment, ranging from human intelligence (humint) gathering to signals intelligence (sigint) collection, all intended to analyze local political or economic developments to ensure that the home country preserves its national interests.
In June 2013, ex-NSA contractor whistleblower Edward Snowden publicly released “top secret documents consisting of intelligence files relating to the US and other Five Eyes countries — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom.
The US House intelligence committee report that followed confirmed that “most of the documents Snowden stole have no connection to programs that could impact privacy or civil liberties — they instead pertain to military, defense, and intelligence programs of great interest to America’s adversaries” — China then, Iran now.
The Lowy Institute Global Diplomacy Index disclosed that China in 2024 “has the world’s most extensive diplomatic network with 274 total diplomatic posts. This includes a combination of embassies, consulates-general, and other representative offices, holding a narrow lead over the United States.”
The US is second.
Official records show that the US has 272 bilateral posts (embassies and consulates) in 174 countries, as well as 11 permanent missions to international organizations and seven other posts (as of May 2025). It maintains “interest sections” (in other states’ embassies) in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea.
From buyer to seller
While the US, China, Russia and other countries with economic and political stakes use satellite and internet communications to “buy” information, requiring visa applicants to provide their social and private information is now big business.
In December 2025, the US required visa applicants to make their social media accounts setting public. Even nationals from countries that were able to enter the US without visas (under the visa waiver program), including the UK, Canada and Mexico, are now subject to disclosure of their five-year social media history as a condition of entry to the United States.
With over 185 different types of US visas, categorized broadly into nonimmigrant (temporary) and immigrant (permanent) visas, the US is profiting from selling the privilege to visit, stay, work as well as reside permanently.
Applicants intending to temporarily enter and stay in the US must now pay a base application fee ($185–$315) plus a new mandatory $250 “visa integrity fee,” bringing total base costs to over $435.
Multiply that by an average of 10 million a year from the Department of State statistics page, and you just might run out of zeroes.
And that’s just for those intending to enter and stay in the US temporarily.
Legal immigrants seeking permanent resident status pay higher fees: immediate relative/family preference, $325; affidavit of support fee, $120; employment-based, $345; other immigrant visas, $205 (includes special immigrants, returning residents); diversity visa (DV) program, $330; application for determining returning resident status, $180; transportation letter for legal permanent residents of the US, $575; waiver of two-year residency requirement, J waiver, $120; application for waiver of visa ineligibility, $930. Additional costs: USCIS immigrant fee, $235 (paid after visa issuance, before traveling to the US to receive a green card).
While the number of immigrants is fewer than the nonimmigrant visa applicants, they pay much more.
Add more zeroes then.
Combine the visa collection numbers with the US commercial interests and BEA projects the “US merchandise trade alone reached a record $5.59 trillion in 2025,” the fourth record in the last five years, and the secret of buying and selling information is out.
Next time you apply for a US visa, you become part of the secret.