Espionage open-source group

I was thinking recently about an idea for open source characters that can be used to fill a bit of a void out there: a spy/espionage group. While this is nothing out of the ordinary, I was thinking of spies that were not James Bond, who is really just a government agent and not a spy, but instead characters that do actual espionage. These would be characters who infiltrate organizations, whose characters often work undercover and who ultimately have not only agents who never reveal their identities, but their organization works in secrecy. This could be an international organization whose purpose is to determine if laws are being broken and to report these crimes to the correct state's proper authorities.

There are obviously kinks in such an idea to work out. For instance, I don't have any character ideas yet. As well, one could ask how a super-secret international police force would be funded, and by whom. But those are two reasons I put this up here for discussion. Plus, a good name for the organization is always in order.

I've been watching a show called Leverage in reruns on a cable station called TNT where I live. It's been cancelled as of Dec '12, so I'm catching up. I tend to think of the characters as similar to the espionage idea you wrote. They are really just con artists, but they only give their real IDs to the clients they work for, everyone else is an alias. There's a a five-person team: a thief, a grifter, a hacker, and an information retrieval specialist, led by former insurance investigator Nathan Ford, who use their skills to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens. They work in secret, no one outside their clients know them, and the crimes that they investigate are usually reported to local/state authorities anonymously.

I could see a variant of this team from the PD characters.

shastab24 wrote:

For instance, I don't have any character ideas yet.  As well, one could ask how a super-secret international police force would be funded, and by whom.  But those are two reasons I put this up here for discussion.  Plus, a good name for the organization is always in order.

Maybe the way to go with this would be to NOT come up with many detailed characters. If you just came up with the structure and maybe a few key people (like the major chiefs, etc.), then people can just create whatever agent they need for their story (femme fatale, suave ladies' man, ex-jock bodyguard type, whatever) and plug him/her into that framework.

How could the agency be funded? Perhaps a wealthy humanitarian who lost someone to terrorist action met up with other wealthy individuals in the same situation and they started it. But they agency is now continued by collecting bounties, rewards, etc. I would see them as being very spread out (each base having 5-20 agents on hand, perhaps operating like the Leverage team SHF mentioned). They would communicate via a super secure Internet connection, provided the relatively small teams with much bigger resources.

BTW, I LOVED The Man From UNCLE and have come up with tons of anagram names over the years. A few that might work for this, if you're interested, include: GUN (Global Underground Network), HERO (Humanitarian Espionage Reinforcement Office), SEARCH (Secret Espionage Agency for Retrieval – Central Headquarters), and TARGET (Technologically Advanced Research Group and Espionage Team).

F.R.E.E.D.O.M. - Federal Response after Emergencies and Espionage, Defensive Operational Mandate
F.L.A.G.S. - Federal Law and Government Security
R.A.N.G.E.R. - Reserve Armored Network for Government Emergency Response/Rescue/Retrieval
O.S.I - Office of Scientific/Supernatural Investigations

S.U.P.E.R. - Superior Utilized Prototype/Power Enhanced/Emergency Rescue/Retrieval/Response
P.O.W.E.R. - Prototype/Power Operations w Emergency Retrieval/Response

Just a few I've had in mind for my story/comic I've had for a while now.
FLAGS was based on the Foundation for Law and Government from Knight Rider Classic.
The POWER and RANGER was based on the Power Rangers if they were more real world based.
OSI from Six Million Dollar Man and the Office of Scientific Intelligence
I forget what FREEDOM was based off of.