From Spy Novels to CIA Papers

Washington, DC - Georgetown University’s newest addition to its special collections delves deep into the world of spies, espionage and secret intelligence...

Most recently, the university acquired a special collection from the family of the late Richard Helms, director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1966 to 1973. Personal and professional papers and photographs paint a picture of a nation in turmoil from the Vietnam and Cold Wars – and how that turmoil forced U.S. intelligence gathering to adapt.

The library’s espionage and intelligence division stands as just one subset of an overall special collection that boasts 100,000 rare books and 7,000 linear feet of manuscripts in addition to art and other media. The division began in earnest 25 years ago with the Russell J. Bowen collection, comprising of thousands of nonfiction books on intelligence. Bowen had worked for the CIA as a senior foreign technology analyst in the areas of non-nuclear energy and illegal technology transfer.

Georgetown celebrated the new collection, which will be on display at Lauinger Library (Gunlocke Room) through May 31. (more)

Spycraft 101: CIA Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaeda

Tuesday, 3 June; 6:30 pm
Rubber airplanes, messages planted inside dead rats, and subminiature cameras hidden inside ballpoint pens…

Science fiction? Q’s imaginary tools? Think again. These are just a few of the real-life devices created by the ultra-ingenious CIA Office of Technical Services (OTS).

In support of their new book Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaedathe former director of OTS Bob Wallace teams up with internationally renowned espionage historian H. Keith Melton to reveal the amazing life and death operations of OTS, the CIA’s shadowy “wizards.”

Presented against a backdrop of some of America’s most critical periods of history—including the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the war on terror—this is a unique chance to go inside the hidden world of America’s “Q” and see many of the actual gadgets.

Rare devices including concealments, microdots, and disguises will be on display, and all attendees will have the opportunity to have their photos taken (bring your own camera please) with an authentic (and official) freeze-dried CIA rat designed for covert communications in Moscow. It will be a memento of the evening you’ll treasure forever!
Tickets: $20 • Members of The Spy Ring® (Join Today!): $16 (more)

JK Rowling wins privacy case over son's photo

UK - Harry Potter author JK Rowling has won her battle to ban the further publication of a long-lens photograph of her son, in a privacy case her lawyers called a major development in British law.

In a written judgment, a panel of judges upheld the appeal, a ruling which Rowling and husband Neil Murray welcomed.

"We understand and accept that with the success of Harry Potter there will be a measure of legitimate media and public interest in Jo's (Rowling's) professional activities and appearances," the couple said in a statement.

"However, we have striven to give our children a normal family life outside the media spotlight.

"We are immensely grateful to the court for giving our children protection from covert, unauthorised photography; this ruling will make an immediate and material difference to their lives." (more)
...but, if they didn't win, there was always... >Plan B<.

Hollywood Wiretap - Is The Pellicano Case New?

Two-bit snoops are a dime a dozen, but Hollywood wiretappers rate a four-bit litereary, literally!
Enough with the alliteration.
Blow 50 cents (not literally) and tap into some deja vu by Brad Lewis. Download Hollywood Wiretap– instantly – from Amazon.com, now.

Corporate Security Directors. Make your job easier.

Get your employees to love you.
Distribute this new book...
"Staying Safe Abroad."

Ed Lee, a retired U.S. diplomat and Federal agent, spent most of his years in the U.S. State Department as a Regional Security Officer (RSO) in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, where he successfully kept diplomats, their families and U.S. interests safe from terrorism and crime.

In 2002, Ed returned to the State Department as a senior advisor to help institute post-9/11 anti-terrorism strategies, retiring again in 2006. He then formed Sleeping Bear Risk Solutions, which provides investigative, emergency planning and staff security services. He also regularly delivers speeches on terrorism and international security to corporate and governmental audiences. (ISBN: 978-0-9815605-0-2, 360 Pages, $22.95)

Staying Safe Abroad: Traveling, Working & Living in a Post-9/11 World "is the best book yet on travel security. This book is one that should be read and kept in every traveler’s briefcase for reference.” — John L. Makowski, Director - Global Security, Briggs & Stratton Corporation

"Every person who travels, whether abroad or domestically, should own this book." — Martha Miller, Ph.D., Cross Cultural Trainer to U.S. Diplomats and Multinational Executives

P.S. - Employees... A free copy of this should accompany the plane ticket whenever your employer sends you abroad. Ask your Security / Personnel / Travel Department Director for a copy. It's the least they could do for you. If all else fails, buy it yourself.

If you are my client, I'll buy it for you!
Contact me for a free copy. ~Kevin

FutureWatch - Cell Phone Crackdowns

Austria - Taking a cue from France's national railway, which offers phone-free «zen zones» on high-speed trains, Austria's second-largest city this week began ordering public transit commuters to keep their phones on silent mode.

The crackdown in the southern city of Graz has triggered a loud debate between advocates of free speech and people who say they're simply fed up with having to listen to annoying ring tones and intrusive cell phone chatter while riding a public bus or tram. (more) (etiquette) (how other are dispensing justice) (Divine justice)

Extra Credit...
''No matter the excitement in the industry he had created, Bell forever refused to have a telephone in his study. He resented its persistent jangle.'' - from ''Once Upon a Telephone: An Illustrated Social History'' (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994) by Ellen Stern and Emily Gwathmey

The Original Hollywood Wiretapper

By Will Vaus
The trial of private detective Anthony Pellicano, who is charged with 110 counts of racketeering, wiretapping, conspiracy and other federal charges, has been capturing headlines for quite some time. No wonder. Its connections to the mob, eavesdropping on Hollywood conversations and the revolving door of movie industry personalities make for a good read. However, for me and my family, it is déjà vu.

Why? Because my father, "Big Jim" Vaus, was the original Hollywood wiretapper. He launched the practice of listening in on the stars in the 1940s and gained the same sort of notoriety then that surrounds Pellicano now. He was written up in the L.A. papers, and his story has been featured in Time, Life, Reader's Digest and in a 1955 movie, "Wiretapper." (more)

Will Vaus, author of My Father Was a Gangster: The Jim Vaus Story

Recordings of Jim Vaus talking about his life.
More stories about Jim Vaus...
The Hollywood Vice Queen (1948)
Wiretapping in Hollywood (1955)
Why Jim Vaus Quit Wiretapping (1946)

More fascinating than fiction, Seduced by Secrets takes the reader inside the real world of one of the most effective and feared spy agencies in history. The book reveals, for the first time, the secret technical methods and sources of the Stasi (East German Ministry for State Security) as it stole secrets from abroad and developed gadgets at home, employing universal, highly guarded techniques often used by other spy and security agencies.

Seduced by Secrets draws on secret files from the Stasi archives, including CIA-acquired material, interviews and friendships, court documents, and unusual visits to spy sites, including "breaking into" a prison, to demonstrate that the Stasi overestimated the power of secrets to solve problems and created an insular spy culture more intent on securing its power than protecting national security.

It recreates the Stasi's secret world of technology through biographies of agents, defectors, and officers and by visualizing James Bond–like techniques and gadgets.

In this highly original book, Kristie Macrakis adds a new dimension to our understanding of the East German Ministry for State Security by bringing the topic into the realm of espionage history and exiting the political domain. (more)

Turn your iPhone sideways, and "Open Channel D"

The Incredible World of SPY-Fi: Wild and Crazy Spy Gadgets, Props, and Artifacts from TV and the Movies
by Danny Biederman

from Publishers weekly...
Even people who aren’t big spy movie fans know that James Bond gets to play with some great gadgets. The same goes for the casts of Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and I Spy.

Biederman has been immersed in the spy world, at least as Hollywood depicts it, from the time of his youth in the 1960s, when he was introduced to a world of "spies, gadgets, adventure, and beautiful women—everything that a ten-year-old boy could possibly want."

Since then he has collected over 4,000 props from various sets, amassing such an impressive trove that in 2000 the CIA asked him to exhibit it at its headquarters.

This book tells the story of each TV series and movie through Biederman’s props, which range from the coat hook used in U.N.C.L.E. to open a secret passageway, to the gold sofa that adorned James West’s private railroad car in The Wild Wild West.

Perfect Passwords - GRC's Ultra High Security Password Generator

Every time you visit this page, you get (FREE) a unique set of custom, high quality, cryptographic-strength password strings which are safe for you to use.
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If you decide to use these great passwords, you might also need this.

Spy vs. Spy - The East Berlin Tunnel

On a rainy day 52 years ago, the cover was blown on one of the biggest espionage plots of the Cold War. Soviet and East German forces announced that they had found a quarter-mile-long tunnel that the CIA had burrowed into East Berlin as part of a massive wiretapping operation.

Though the audacious project had come to a crashing end, news of the discovery generated unrestrained glee across the Atlantic at CIA headquarters. America's spymasters were thrilled by the world's response: admiration for the CIA's daring and technical prowess, and a general assumption that the agency had roundly snookered the Soviets.

The truth was much more complicated. Unbeknownst to the CIA, the Soviets had known about the tunnel all along. (more)
Book: Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War

The Ultimate Wiretap

The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret

Seth Shulman closely examines the race to build the first telephone and uncovers potential bombshells with The Telephone Gambit. Although Alexander Graham Bell is widely accepted as the father of the telephone (despite the fact that rival inventor Elisha Gray submitted a similar claim the same day Bell filed his patent), Schulman provides intriguing evidence questioning if the scales were deliberately tipped in Alexander's favor. Was the venerable inventor party to theft from Gray's own research?

While researching Alexander Graham Bell at MIT's Dibner Institute, Seth Shulman scrutinized Bell's journals and within them he found the smoking gun, a hint of deeply buried historical intrigue. Delving further, Shulman unearthed the surprising story behind the invention of the telephone: a tale of romance, corruption, and unchecked ambition.

Bell furtively—and illegally—copied part of Elisha Gray's invention in the race to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued. book

Senior Russian spy's secrets revealed in new book

"Comrade J.: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America after the End of the Cold War"

Once a senior KGB officer who says he was driven by patriotism, Sergei Tretyakov says he defected in 2000 because he lost faith in post-Soviet Russia and he's now ready to tell his story for the first time.

As deputy head of intelligence at Russia's U.N. mission from 1995 to 2000, Tretyakov directed spy operations in New York and at the United Nations. He says his agents included a former Soviet bloc ambassador and a senior Russian official in the Iraqi oil-for-food program.

Tretyakov's defection with his wife and daughter in 2000 caused only a minor flurry and was shrouded in secrecy.

A new book by former Washington Post journalist Pete Earley reveals he was among the most senior Russian agents to defect to the United States, and that he was a double-agent passing secrets to Washington for up to three years before 2000. (more)

Spy History - OSS - A Living History Website

"The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was created on June 13, 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt who understood America's need for an intelligence service similar to Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE).

Its director was Major General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, a World War I Medal of Honor winner, the only person to win our nation's four highest military honors, and the father of the CIA and US Special Forces." (more) (OSS wikipedia) (The OSS Society)

OSS Reborn is a website created by my good colleague Charles Pinck and his father Dan Pinck, who served in the OSS. The website tells the history of this exciting - and life saving - espionage organization. It also goes one step further - living history. OSSreborn.com solicits contributions! This will get very interesting.

In the meantime, pick up a copy of Dan Pinck's memoir, Journey to Peking: A Secret Agent in Wartime China.

Spy Barred - Dead at 72

Cuban state media report that former CIA agent Philip Agee, who caused outrage by naming undercover former colleagues, has died in Cuba at the age of 72.

Agee quit the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the late 1960s after 12 years of working mostly in Latin America. He later wrote the book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," which included the names of certain undercover agents.

The book infuriated U.S. officials who said it put those agents in danger, and the U.S. government revoked Agee's passport. (more)

Book Review - "The Memory Room"

What makes somebody choose to become a spy?

What motivates people to make espionage their profession is one of the themes of Christopher Koch's seventh novel, an examination of the life, from childhood to the end of his career, of an Australian spy called Vincent Austin. (Jake Kerridge reviews "The Memory Room" by Christopher Koch)

...but, the silver space suit did cause a little envy.

Joseph Weisberg looks about how you would expect a Brooklyn dad and schoolteacher to look, with a bald head, white-flecked beard and baggy leather jacket. So on a recent frigid night, when he ambled down a Park Slope street and surreptitiously passed off a plastic container from a gumball machine to a reporter, nobody noticed.

It was one of many examples of spy trade craft that Weisberg, 42, learned while training to be a case officer with the Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1990s. He no longer works there (or so he says), but he has used some of what he learned to write his latest novel, "An Ordinary Spy," which goes on sale today.

The novel, published by Bloomsbury USA, explores the moral complexity and psychological fallout of clandestine service, through a taut plot involving two case officers who meet after bungled foreign assignments a few years apart. Told in restrained prose that reflects the emotional reserve of the characters, the book is more than a thriller. It is also a chronicle of the mundanity of a spy's daily routine - not just the surveillance-detection routes and cryptic cables to headquarters, but also the staff meetings, petty rivalries between colleagues and idle chatter about pension plans. It's not quite "The Office" of espionage, but it's close. (more)

How Investigators Stay ahead of the Tech Curve

They read...From the publisher...
"The purpose of this [site] is to provide reviews and recommendations on specific products, books, websites, etc and to implement technology based solutions for your investigative needs. It is kind of a "gadget reports/warehouse" which is investigative related only." (link)

Mata Hari - Ten More Years to the Truth

The exotic and, some say, quixotic Mata Hari has spawned considerable cultural speculation since her mysterious World War I execution. Greta Garbo shot this fame further by playing her in a 1931 film. Kurt Vonnegut had Mother Night's protagonist dedicate his memoirs to her. Even the sexually diffident George Lucas permitted Indiana Jones to lose his virginity to her.

We won't know until 2017 -- the year when the case documents will be unsealed and revealed to the public -- if Mata Hari was a spy or not. But in the meantime, Yannick Murphy's third novel considers the circumstances that galvanized her legend, while ruing upon larger issues of womanhood, the burdens of perception and societal abuse. (more)

Get up-to-speed on computer espionage. Read...

Secrets of Computer Espionage: Tactics and Countermeasures

"Is someone spying on you?

It could be your boss, your competition, or a private investigator, but it could just as easily be a foreign intelligence agent - or the whiz kid down the street. More and more people today want to know what's on your computer, your PDA, your cell phone, or your wireless network.

Joel McNamara takes you inside the mind of the computer espionage artist... This is the book that teaches you to think like a spy, because that's the only way to outwit one."

Contents at a Glance
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
Chapter 1 Spies.
Chapter 2 Spying and the Law.
Chapter 3 Black Bag Jobs.
Chapter 4 Breaching the System.
Chapter 5 Searching for Evidence.
Chapter 6 Unprotecting Data.
Chapter 7 Copying Data.
Chapter 8 Snooping with Keyloggers.
Chapter 9 Spying with Trojan Horses.
Chapter 10 Network Eavesdropping.
Chapter 11 802.11b Wireless Network Eavesdropping.
Chapter 12 Spying on Electronic Devices.
Chapter 13 Advanced Computer Espionage.
Appendix A: What's on the Web Site.
Index.

Guest Consultant - Effective Security Management

Charles A. Sennewald, CMC, CPP, CPO, is the author of Effective Security Management. He has a genius for turning difficult into easy!

Here is his tip for disciplining subordinates...

Torture as Part of the Disciplinary Process
To discipline a subordinate is deemed by many a supervisor and manager as a personal ordeal or a form of torture. “Torture” in terms of being obliged to confront and criticize the performance, or lack of performance, of a fellow employee. We agonize over sitting down face-to-face to deal with the problem. Not a pleasant task! No one wants to do it.

BUT WAIT! We can take the torture out of the process if we understand three simple principles:
1. The word discipline is derived from the Latin discipulus which means learning. The word disciple comes from the same root, hence the disciples of Christ were students, hence discipline really means a learning process, not a punitive action.

2. This learning process, really a form of training, corrects, molds or strengthens an employee in the interests of achieving departmental or organizational goals.

3. Thus the effective disciplinary process condemns the wrongful act, not the employee, i.e. you’re okay but what you did is not okay. By focusing on the conduct and performance rather than the personality the whole process takes on a constructive dimension which is easy to handle and is acceptable by all.

Adios Torture.

Muchas gracias, Chuck!

Spybuster's Tip #103 - Spot the Spy

Joe Navarro is an ex-FBI agent. His job was spotting spies. His weapon... he reads body language. These days, Joe writes and teaches poker players how to win.

He can help you spot deceit in your business as well.

Joe says...
"Poker players lie all the time. They pretend they are strong when they are weak or weak when they are strong. The truth is they can all be read. You can have a poker face, but I've yet to see someone with a poker body."

"When you are feeling good _ or have a monster hand _ your body will manifest what it feels. You get happy feet. Your feet begin to bounce up and down like a kid going to Disney World. We squint at things we don't like. ... The involuntary nonverbal mannerisms dictated by the brain will always betray the strength or weakness of a player's hand."

"If your boss asks at a meeting, `Who is not pulling their weight?', the shoulders will rise on those who are not confident. It's called `The Turtle Effect.' You are trying to hide your head inside your shoulders. On the contrary, a person whose fingertips meet like a church steeple with the thumb pointed up indicates a winning hand."

Want to know more?
Joe's website
A list of common spy personality traits.
Joe teaches at the World Series of Poker Academy


What Every BODY is Saying:
An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People
(due out in April, 2008)

Corporate Spy: Industrial Espionage and Counterintelligence in the Multinational Enterprise

FREE LUNCHTIME AUTHOR DEBRIEFING AND BOOK SIGNING - Thursday, 4 October; 12 noon – 1 pm

In May of 2006, PepsiCo alerted the Coca Cola Company that someone was trying to sell Coke’s secrets. An FBI sting implicated a secretary who has since been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for conspiring to steal trade secrets from the famous beverage maker.

How unusual was this case?
How frequently are businesses under attack?
How can they protect themselves?

Join Steeple Aston, PhD, author of Corporate Spy, as he uncovers the world of the corporate spies: who they are and how they operate. You’ll learn the warning signs and hear about some of the most dramatic cases of industrial espionage in recent years. (more)

International Spy Museum
800 F Street, NW Washington, DC 20004
202.393.7798

This spy worked for royalty 400 years ago

Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War That Saved England By Robert Hutchinson

More than 400 years ago, England's Queen Elizabeth I appointed a single man in charge of both intelligence and security, with input on military strategy, too.

His covert staff covered nearly all of Europe. At his peak, he had 18 secret agents in foreign courts and 53 other spies besides those within Britain. He had many fewer scruples.

"Without torture I know we shall not prevail," Sir Francis Walsingham told his immediate boss. Walsingham was reporting to Elizabeth's chief minister, Lord Burghley, on a conspiracy centred on Mary Queen of Scots, who wanted to be Queen of England, too. (more)

Want to ...be a Private Investigator?

...read the magazine they read, just for fun?
...ask a PI a question on-line?
...play with real PI gear?
...find a PI to help you?

Then, you need to bookmark this web site.

Wiretap Law History - Chapter 1

Whispering Wires: The Tragic Tale of an American Bootlegger
ISBN: 9781592992522
by Philip Metcalfe

In Whispering Wires, Metcalfe tells the story of Roy Olmstead, one of the principal bootleggers in Prohibition-era Seattle, and the first major federal court case concerning the use of wiretaps.

He writes, "Set into motion then was a constellation of conditions that no one could have foretold. Prohibition had produced a shadow universe governed by an aberrant moral algebra." This historical narrative follows the city officials, Prohibition agents, and rumrunners who chased, evaded, and double-crossed each other during one of Seattle's most thrilling eras. (more)

Unveiling Mata Hari: Dancer, Sexpot, Desperate Housewife, Spy

Mata Hari had a weakness for officers, and it didn't much matter which side they were on. In 1917 the exotic dancer who delighted audiences by wearing very little was convicted of espionage by the French government and brought before a firing squad at the age of 41.

Was she really the conniving femme fatale French authorities said handed over state secrets to the Germans, leading to the deaths of 50,000 Frenchmen? Pat Shipman sets out to answer that question in her engrossing "Femme Fatale: Love, Lies and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari." (more)

“If the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”

from: Why Nixon and Watergate Still Matter: An Interview with James Reston, Jr.

"With the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Watergate break-in coming up this Sunday, one of the hottest tickets on Broadway is Richard M. Nixon. Played by Frank Langella (who just won a Tony Award for his performance), Nixon cunningly spars with Michael Sheen’s David Frost in a live re-creation of the famed television interviews that the British TV personality held with the ex-President in 1977.

The interviews were a landmark in the history of both American politics and television, and they attracted some 50 million viewers. The play, Frost/Nixon (which next year will be a motion picture from Ron Howard), was developed from James Reston, Jr.’s The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews (Harmony, 208 pages, $22), just out this month.

From his home near Washington, D.C., James Reston answered questions about his involvement with the interviews and how they came about..." (more) (Why is this man really laughing?)

Think your office phone calls are private?

Think again...

Vanderbilt professor says Wal-Mart case calls attention to employer’s right to eavesdrop on employee calls.

Wal-Mart officials have said the employee in the recently reported case was not authorized to make the recordings and added that company policy restricts monitoring of employee communications to instances in which fraud or criminal activity is suspected. However, that policy is not a requirement. "We know from recent surveys by groups such as the American Management Association and others that many firms do routinely monitor employee communications that employees might think is private, without cause of suspicion," says Bruce Barry, professor of management and sociology. (more)

Professor Barry is the author of , "Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace."

DIY CSI Internet

...or how security directors can get up-to-speed fast on the mysterious workings of the on-line world.

Free, 137-page downloadable booklet from the U.S. Department of Justice -- Investigations Involving the Internet and Computer Networks. (get it)

Fun read for your kids...

Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent
by Thomas B. Allen (ages 9 and older)

Born a slave but determined to be free, Harriet Tubman was called Black Moses for leading hundreds of slaves to freedom during the Civil War. Many escaped from Maryland, where Harriet had been born around 1820.

A small woman who could neither read nor write, she became an important spy for the Union (North) and was the only female to lead men into battle. A $12,000 reward was put on her head, but she was never caught.

Tubman's story is just one in this fascinating account of spying during the 1861-65 war. (book)

Comparative Wiretapping Book

On Wiretapping! (Teknik Dinlemeye Dair!)
by Ali Ozdogan, American University

This book has two parts. The first part covers the historical evolution of the American wiretapping legislation, summary of the American Wiretapping Criminal Procedure, the summary of Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA), and the privacy and property right problems in the CALEA and the corresponding suggestions.

The second part of the book covers analytical summary and comparative analyses of legal positions of wiretapping in Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Israel, and Turkey.

(Note that the manuscript is currently in Turkish. For the English version of the manuscript, please contact to author.)