The CIA's Odd Man Out: CIA station chief Bob Lady coordinated the secret kidnapping of Islamic militant Abu Omar in Milan and Omar's "extreme rendition" to Egypt where he was tortured. Italy indicted various CIA agents; Lady is on the run in Central America, abandoned by the agency. The twist: Lady opposed the mission all along. And Abu Omar will probably end up with Lady's home in the foothills of the Alps.
posted on Apr 22, 2008 - View this thread

The 21 Steps is a spy thriller short story that is told using Google Maps. [via mefi projects]
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - View this thread

Is now captured Robert A. Levinson a spy? a government agent?
Perhaps someone on non-official cover (NOC)? or just a guy doing some research for a book in Iran. The WaPo cuts through the mumbo jumbo here.
posted on Apr 3, 2007 - View this thread

Canadian spy monies?! The Defense Department has issued a warning to its American contractor employees. Apparently, Canadian coins have been outfitted with embedded RFID transmitters. Not the first instance of RFIDs in monies either. Explosive consequences. Elsewhere, whats the point? RFID previously on Metafilter.
posted on Jan 11, 2007 - View this thread

"If you really wanted to poison someone, you would of course have to come up with a way to remove the invisible amount of material from the exempt sources - which is just about physically impossible and combine them together. Of course you would also need that 15,000 exempt sources." You can buy the radioactive material, Polonium-210, that killed a former Russian spy for only $69--but you'd need a lot of it to take down an enemy or two.
posted on Nov 30, 2006 - View this thread

The real James Bond — Sidney George Reilly, the shadowy 'Ace of Spies' and inspiration for Ian Fleming's 007, was born Shlomo/Sigmund Georgievich Rosenblum in Ukraine/Poland in 1874. Perhaps illegitimate, dapper Sidney was a tireless self-promoter, patent-medicine chemist, world traveller, and high-stakes gambler (not only at the tables: he married four women but divorced none.) A Czarist Okhrana informer as a Parisian student, he was hired as an undercover agent in the late 1890s by M of Scotland Yard. Reilly worked both sides of the Russo-Japanese War, influenced British oil interests in Iran, brokered World War I arms sales, and volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps in Canada. Sent to Russia by C of Britain's SIS in 1918, he joined a plot to overthrow the Bolsheviks: it failed, but he escaped to London. Returning to Russia in 1919 to help the White Army, he was later awarded the British Military Cross. A staunch anti-Communist, Reilly schemed against them throughout his career. Lured back to Russia by agents of the 'Trust' — an anti-Bolshevik trap set by the Soviet OGPU — Sidney was arrested, interrogated, and shot in 1925.
posted on Oct 18, 2006 - View this thread

The NSA Bibliographies The NSA internally publishes thousands of papers every year, on every topic from spycraft to cryptography to physics & aliens (no, really!). Each year the titles of these papers gets indexed & those indexes are also published internally. The Memory Hole has made a successful FOIA request for a large number of these, spanning almost 50 years. We don't get to see the actual papers, but just the titles are fascinating - including such page turners as "Computer Virus Infections: Is NSA Vulnerable?", "KAL 007 Shootdown: A View from [redacted]", "NSA in the Cyberpunk Future", "Telephone Codes and Safe Combinations: A Deadly Duo", "Coupon Collecting and Cryptology", "Cranks, Nuts, and Screwballs" & my personal favorite, "Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages". When you're done browsing the titles, there's a sample form you can use to request some of the documents yourself!
posted on Oct 2, 2006 - View this thread

Richard Tomlinson is a former spy. Jailed under the Official Secrets Act in 1995 for publishing his memoirs, famed for claiming there's a cover up surrounding Princess Diana's death and allegedly leaking a list of active MI6 agents, he is still fuming about his dismissal from the Secret Intelligence Service. So he started a weblog, complete with posts containing sensitive information. The British authorities are displeased.
posted on May 24, 2006 - View this thread

A fake stone packed with sophisticated British spy devices sparks a UK / Russian controversy. More articles via Google News
posted on Jan 26, 2006 - View this thread

The New York Times (reg required) is reporting that the National Security Agency has eavesdropped on far more domestic telecommunications at the directive of President Bush than has been previously admitted. "The N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications... N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation."
posted on Dec 23, 2005 - View this thread

$110 gets you last 100 calls made by any cellphone. Apparently it is legal.
posted on Nov 29, 2005 - View this thread

Daniel Craig = Bond, James Bond
Daniel Craig has been announced as the sixth James Bond in the remake of Casino Royale, the next movie in the long running series of over-the-top spy movies.
We'll see how he performs but he's got some mighty big shoes to fill and fill (with a big Happy Birthday to you!) and fill and fill and fill.
posted on Oct 14, 2005 - View this thread

[newsfilter]Espionage in the White House. First known W.H. spy in modern history.[/newsfilter]
posted on Oct 5, 2005 - View this thread

Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky [via]
posted on Sep 8, 2005 - View this thread

Where there's smoke there's fire. The AIPAC spy scandal, new developments with foreign lobbies compromising our nation's security, major government officials involving themselves in drug money laundering, military weapons procurement for dangerous nations, penetration of our intelligence agencies and the pentagon by foreign spy agencies. When will the smoke turn to fire?
posted on Aug 10, 2005 - View this thread

The New Yorker has an article about AIPAC ( the American Israel Public Affairs Commision ) and the ongoing spy investigation into Larry Franklin and his passing of classified information to AIPAC who then passed it on to Israel. The article points to the question of whether AIPAC should be forced to register as the agent of a foreign power and whether there is undue influence over American policy by Israel's Likud party.
posted on Jun 30, 2005 - View this thread

The delusional world of Robert Hendy-Freegard, assasin/spy/carsalesman The tale of a power-mad car salesman. The guy managed to get so many people to do so many crazy things that I suggest you read the link for yourself. Unbelievable.
posted on Jun 24, 2005 - View this thread

Built at Lockheed's secret Skunk Works facility for use by the Central Intelligence Agency, and in service since 1950s, the U2 spy plane has seen service all over the world (or, at the very least, 70,000 feet above it). It has shown us what both our friends and enemies were doing, helping us avert wars, and in at least one occasion, almost causing one itself. Today, just over 45 years since Francis Gary Powers fell from the sky into the Soviet Union, the United States Air Force has announced from Baghdad that yet another Dragon Lady has fallen from the sky in an undisclosed location in Southwestern Asia.
posted on Jun 22, 2005 - View this thread

A Spreading Treason The vagaries of U.S. involvement in the Middle East were surely brought home to First Lady Laura Bush on her recent trip to Israel, on a tour of Jerusalem's holiest sites. At the Wailing Wall, where she placed a note in the Western Wall – as is the custom – she faced surly throngs of protesters shouting "Free Pollard Now!" The Pollardites also showed up earlier that morning, as Mrs. Bush paid a visit to the home of Israeli President Moshe Katsav: "Pollard, the people are with you!" they chanted.
posted on May 25, 2005 - View this thread

Fred Burks: Conscientious whistle-blower or American traitor? Fred Burks was a State Department interpreter in Indonesian for almost two decades. After resigning his contract when asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, he suddenly appeared as a defence witness in the case of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir who masterminded the Bali bombing. His testimony was instrumental in Ba'asyir's acquittal on terror charges. In court, he divulged the details of a secret meeting between Indonesian President Megawati and CIA and NSA operatives who demanded Megawati arrest Ba'asyir and hand him over which put pressure on the Indonesian court to give Ba'asyir a wrist slap. Fred Burks: Conscientious whistle-blower or American traitor? You decide.
posted on May 8, 2005 - View this thread

The New Hows and Whys of Global Eavesdropping [book review: for access: "legion" "legion"] Remember chatter? After 9/11, it was all over the news. For months, snatches of cellphone conversations in Karachi or Tora Bora routinely made the front page. Television newscasters could chill the blood instantly by reporting on "increased levels of chatter" somewhere in the ether. But what exactly was it? Who was picking it up, and how were they making sense of it? Patrick Radden Keefe does his best to answer these questions and demystify a very mysterious subject in "Chatter," a beginner's guide to the world of electronic espionage and the work of the National Security Agency, responsible for communications security and signals intelligence, or "sigint." In a series of semiautonomous chapters, he describes Echelon, the vast electronic intelligence-gathering system operated by the United States and its English-speaking allies; surveys the current technology of global eavesdropping; and tries to sort out the vexed issue of privacy rights versus security demands in a world at war with terrorism.
posted on Mar 2, 2005 - View this thread

FBI Probes Pentagon Spy Case - Interesting how bad news about the Bush Administration seems to always come out on Fridays - "the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to -- in FBI terminology -- "roll up" someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon."
posted on Aug 27, 2004 - View this thread

Spy vs. Spy sell out! Mountain Dew has roped in the infamous black & white spies to shill their beverage. Quicktime needed to view the commercials. [via waxy.org]
posted on Jun 28, 2004 - View this thread

Back seat driver? Next time you get to drive a Williams F1 BMW around Indianapolis, you will want to know how to do it right. Thanks to the onboard telemetry spy system you can see how Ralf Schumacher tachs to 19000 rpm as he shifts up to 4th and reaches 333 kph on the straightaway, as recorded on the telemetry display (SWF). Compare with other tracks.

Can't get to the track? Drive your phone.
posted on Dec 12, 2003 - View this thread

Robert Meeropol, the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, writes about his parents. I'm suprised nobody else posted about this yesterday--June 19th was the 50th anniversary of their execution for espionage.
The executions at Sing Sing on June 19, 1953, ended a sensational Cold War case that still symbolizes the years when McCarthyism held sway and the government's word was accepted more readily than today. It was the first execution of civilians for espionage in U.S. history and it reverberated into the issues of dissent, anti-Semitism and capital punishment.
Pete Seeger and others comment here; the Guardian here. The Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Trial (which features representations of the couple by Picasso, among others) notes that:
In August of 1993, members of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation re-enacted the 1951 trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. A moot trial was conducted with expertise and meticulous concern for accuracy. The unanimous verdict of the twelve jurors was "Not Guilty." This "trial" and its dramatic outcome was widely reported by the media - for one day only.
posted on Jun 20, 2003 - View this thread

Emma Peel could eat Buffy Summers for breakfast. An online encyclopedia dedicated to one of the best shows to come out of Britain, The Avengers. It's also the best TV fansite I've ever seen, I think--comprehensive, well-designed, smart without being "inside" or academic, and free of fanboy attitude. Even if you've never watched the show, take some time to look around. [more inside]
posted on May 23, 2003 - View this thread

"You will have heard, Dr Sir I doubt not long before this can have reached you that Sir W. Howe is gone from hence. The Rebels imagine that he is gone to the Eastward. By this time however he has filled Chesapeak bay with surprize and terror." - Sir Henry Clinton

Spy Letters of the American Revolution is an excellent site offering such gems as a captured letter written from Rachel Revere to husband Paul, a message from a colonial scientist written in invisible ink, and Benedict Arnold's encrypted message to the British offering to surrender West Point for £20,000. The site includes photos of the documents, back-stories on each letter, profiles of the people involved, and descriptions of methodology, as well as a timeline and route map.
posted on Oct 31, 2002 - View this thread

Do you plan to stay at a Marriott hotel any time soon? If so, you might want to relieve yourself in the dark since a spy cam was found in a Marriott hotel's bathroom lighting fixture and connected to the same circuit so as to turn on with the lights.
posted on Sep 25, 2002 - View this thread

Pssst, don't look at me, just listen. Were you followed? Good. I've left the information you requested at a drop right in front of The International Spy Museum which opens today in Washington, DC.
posted on Jul 19, 2002 - View this thread

The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties groups.

The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report "suspicious activity".
posted on Jul 14, 2002 - View this thread

Fallout Shelter News announces the July opening of DC's International Spy Museum. "Holy brainwashing, Batman ... if they tell us what’s in it, will they have to kill us?" Before exiting into the 5,000-square-foot gift shop and choosing between two restaurants for a bite to eat, visitors will be able to discuss the current state of espionage with specialists who once worked in the field.
posted on May 30, 2002 - View this thread

Build your very own 'pinhole spy camera'! This one looks much cooler than the ones we had to build at school. (requires Flash)
posted on May 20, 2002 - View this thread

DEA leaked report on Israeli spy ring Leaked report with blacked out names and no title etc? Note that the spies, if such they are, were gathering info dealing with drug enforcement and not with American military. Is this good? No Bad? yes. But seemingly not bad enough to anything other than shipping them out. Israeli mb big on Ecstasy and DEA well aware of this (If I am, why wouldn't they?). pdf file
posted on Mar 23, 2002 - View this thread

The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination, an essay by the CIA
posted on Mar 5, 2002 - View this thread

Dr. Paul Linebarger became a spy for the U.S. Intelligence community because he was an expert in propaganda, psychological warfare, and the culture of China. In his other secret life, however, he wrote some of the most wildly inventive and unusual science fiction ever, forming a history of mankind and its Instrumentality that spanned fifteen thousand years. To protect his identity, he published under the name Cordwainer Smith.
posted on Feb 21, 2002 - View this thread

Alleged FBI Double Agent's Stripper 'Friend' Talks: No easy way to put that, sorry. So this is what Robert Hanssen did with all that money from spying? Or allegedly did? He really was just trying to "rescue" her? Goodness, what a bizarre and disturbing story. Please be warned that this is dizzyingly strong material, especially the part about the fate of the subject's false teeth. It's "Pretty Woman" without the sex, but with the Soviet Union and crack.
posted on Apr 29, 2001 - View this thread

I spy. You spy too Anything we do you do too: China big in the sky spy game
posted on Apr 19, 2001 - View this thread

Bush Virtual Pet Game Soars in China "In the wake of the downed U.S. spy plane, the Chinese apparently have found a new way to ridicule President George W. Bush - a virtual pet modeled after him" [They need a Palm Pilot to mock Bush?]
posted on Apr 17, 2001 - View this thread

I spy again As that great American icon says in her song: oophs, I did it again. America to send another spy plane to cruise the Chinese coast. Jesse, keep your bag packed.
posted on Apr 11, 2001 - View this thread

U.S. Refuses To Apologize to China - This seems to me to be the right decision. What do you think we should do here?
posted on Apr 4, 2001 - View this thread

What the Pentagon has lost The American spy plane carried very sophisticted andf important snoopware...did they destroy what they could before landing?
posted on Apr 2, 2001 - View this thread

50 Russian diplomats expelled from the US on suspicion of being spies. Discuss...
posted on Mar 22, 2001 - View this thread