Couple of other interesting approaches for information gathering;
2) Scholarship holders are asked to "help" the country by telling about what is going on among Singaporeans studying overseas. The best joke was those who went to UK and met up and joined in Tan Wah Piow's session. I won't be surprised that in some years, nearly all were involved in sending reports back.
"national duty", " service to the country" , "good old rivalry" and money are powerful motives.
Thanks for all your inputs. Allow me to clarify with a concrete example.
Let's say someone was indeed approached by ISD/SID in the above scenario- young scholarship holder overseas being asked to "spy" on fellow scholars. Let's assume s/he did a good job doing this and returned to Singapore- surely the ties with ISD/SID will not abruptly break? But yet, for the purposes of the scholarship, s/he has to be assigned back to a "proper" work organization. In the course of 8 years, this person has floated from one Ministry to another, barely staying each for two years; even granted no pay leave for nine months at one point and then resign from civil servace and now has been "jobless" for months. Jobless yet seemingly unconcerned about money. Does this person sound like an informant/spy/agent?
Someone is getting close to me and I smell something completely fishy. I have two other friends who confided they are also recently befriended (and for one wooed) by friendly people whom they know little about. For me, it is the same, I seem to know alot about this person that I got to know recently, but yet I do not know the most basic things about him/her. What gives?
I am not trying to be paranoid but I sense something slowly but surely going amiss.