Years ago when I ran around with folks in the "business" and I learned the three rules of a spy:
1. Trust no one, not even your mother/father
2. Put nothing in writing (now it would be email, text, etc)
3. Make sure you have a second exit, also plausible deniability
Now with the rush of our local Stasi on the political powers that were perhaps they should have been trained in these three rules as well.