Game of Pawns, for real

The Chronicle has an article by Karin Fischer containing a warning from the FBI:

For American college students, studying abroad is an opportunity to explore a new country, sample a unfamiliar culture, and meet people from very different backgrounds. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation is apparently worried that some of those new friends might actually be foreign spies.
The FBI has produced a slick, new film, Game of Pawns (video, above), to warn students of the "possibility that a foreign intelligence service might try to recruit them while abroad to eventually steal secrets from the US government." The half-hour movie is based— somewhat loosely— on the story of Glenn Duffie Shriver, who studied abroad in China and later was induced by intelligence officers there to apply for American government jobs. "We are very interested in the friendship of young Americans," one of the Chinese agents tells the character based on Shriver, who was arrested by American authorities in 2010 and sentenced to four years in prison.
The FBI began asking colleges to show Game of Pawns to departing study-abroad students last summer, but in the last week the agency has begun a more aggressive public-awareness campaign. Reaction among educators has been mixed. Some have called worries about potential spies in study abroad exaggerated, particularly compared with other health and safety issues that can arise when students are overseas, including alcohol consumption, traffic accidents, and mental-health crises.
Others have screened Game of Pawns for students or, like Marquette University, mention foreign-intelligence concerns in their online pre-departure orientations and tell students where they can view the movie on their own. Gail Gilbert, Marquette’s assistant director of international education, was part of a committee that has drafted guidance for colleges on the film, posted on the website of NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
Some 283,000 Americans studied abroad in the 2011-12 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education.
Why is the FBI beating the drum about spying and study abroad now? In a written response to The Chronicle, an FBI spokeswoman said the US government had seen an increase in the number of American students targeted by foreign intelligence services while overseas. "Innocent" students are "vulnerable because they are in a perfect position to be recruited," said the official, Minique Crump. "Even if one student sees this movie and walks away a bit more savvy about the world around him/her," she said, "it has served its purpose."

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