Modern bugging and wiretapping sprouted in the late 1940's and was really blooming big-time by the 1960's. Miniature electron tubes and the newly invented transistor were the seeds. The seediest places were New York City and Los Angeles.
Here are two short LA stories...Mickey Cohen, high-tech gangster
This episode began (1949) when vice officers arrested another of Mickey's men for illegal possession of a weapon. Enraged, Mickey arrived at his underling's trial with his personal bugging expert, 300-pound J. Arthur Vaus, and announced that they were going to blow the lid off the LAPD.It seems that a vice detective working out of Hollywood had hired Vaus to eavesdrop on the Strip's leading madam, hoping to document her unholy relationship with a rival vice cop from downtown. But the madam insisted that she was paying off both cops,and Mickey's rotund bugger said he had the damning evidence on magnetic wire. They brought a recorder to court and plopped it on a table, daring anyone to call their bluff.A grand jury did. It had the wire recordings seized and discovered they'd been erased. In one of the more bizarre chapters of a bizarre time, Vaus attended a Billy Graham crusade, found the Lord and confessed his sin -- he'd lied about the tapes. (more)------
The mobster who died in pink pajamas, or how The Gangster Squad got to Jack Dragna by bugging his mistress' bed.
His nighttime attire notwithstanding, Jack Dragna was everything Mickey Cohen was not: cautious to a fault and allergic to limelight. With Dragna, icy distance was the rule when the squad members camped outside his banana warehouse or the Victory Market, where he held meetings in a concrete-walled back room.
The squad's bugging expert, Con Keeler, did once get in between the rounds of a night watchman, but he didn't have time to fully conceal his bug. Dragna's men found it, carried it outside and smashed it on a curb...
The younger Dragna's (law) suit was pending in 1951 when the squad bugged the bed of his father's mistress. She was a secretary for the dry cleaners union, in which the mob had its hooks. If a dry cleaning shop didn't sign up, Dragna's men would send over suits with dye sewn inside so all the clothes in its vats turned purple or red.
The secretary had a wooden headboard with a sunburst pattern. While she was out, Keeler picked the lock to her apartment and hid a mike in the center of the sun. Amid the pillow talk, the bug picked up occasional mentions of mob business, including plans for a new casino in Las Vegas...
Dragna's lawyers could argue that the police didn't have a warrant to eavesdrop, but to no avail -- back then authorities could use illegally obtained evidence.
The misdemeanor case earned Dragna a mere 30-day sentence, but how and where he was bugged stood to cost him respect in the mob... he died in 1956. (more) (background about these two stories) (one more really great bugging story - 2/3rds down the page)
30+ more great electronic-eavesdropping history stories await you at Murray's Eavesdropping History Emporium.
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UK - A schoolboy posed as a female British secret service spy in an internet chatroom to persuade a friend to try to murder him, a court heard yesterday.
The boy, John, now 15, groomed a 16-year-old boy, Mark (both pseudonyms to protect the children), with an "elaborate matrix of deceit" involving six fictional characters in the MSN chatroom and correspondence totalling 56,000 lines of text.
The fictions created by John, then 14, convinced Mark that he was murdering someone who had a terminal brain tumour.
He was told that his reward would be money, a job as a British secret service agent and sex with the spy, whom he believed was a middle-aged woman.In fact, John was determined to get himself killed, which is why he never used the abort code - 6969 - he provided. (more... much more)
AL - A former city landscaping department superintendent who was fired for allegedly sleeping on the job, among other things, is suing the City of Huntsville, claiming the city violated his privacy by spying on him at work.Jeff Rich, an attorney with the Huntsville office of the law firm Sirote & Permutt, filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court for Larry M. Bevil, a city employee for 32 years. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.Bevil's lawsuit alleges the city intruded on his privacy and violated his rights through constant audio and video surveillance of activities in his office. He also said the city breached the employment contract with him by firing him, and not allowing him to resign. (more) (
filing)FutureWatch - "You snooze, you loose. Case dismissed."
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Wiretapping for Dummies
Privacy Invasion? Wire tap concerns? Compromised computer? General harassment issues? ---
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Columbia - The head of Colombia's intelligence agency resigned Thursday amid allegations she had the agency spy on political opponents of President Alvaro Uribe. Maria del Pilar Hurtado presented her resignation to Uribe, to whose office the Administrative Security Agency (DAS) reports, as an "act of dignity," she said. (more)
Turkey - Deputies made unexpected remarks at the Parliamentary Search Commission that was formed after claims were raised that the CHP's Önder Sav was being wiretapped.
The Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, Gaziantep deputy Hasan Özdemir is a former police chief. "Including me, every part of society is experiencing eavesdropping paranoia. People, today, cannot talk freely with their friends, spouses or lovers. Something must be done."
"Technically, it is possible to eavesdrop on what we are talking about here from one kilometer away. Most of the official experts are my friends. And despite I am an ex-security director and a new Parliamentary deputy I am trying to be careful while I am on the phone," he said.
Another member, CHP Adana Representative Tacidar Sayın, is a software expert. "It doesn't take 10 minutes of my time to convert a broken radio or television into eavesdropping equipment," said Seyhan, pointing out how easy it is.
The former police director is having fears of being tapped; the former software expert is drawing attention to how simple it is to eavesdrop. Politicians, journalists, authors, intellectuals, academics … everyone is saying that they are being tapped. The Commision's job is not easy. (more)
Australia - A 29-year-old man has been charged with three counts of recording in breach of privacy, after he was allegedly caught using his mobile phone inappropriately at a shopping centre... Police were called ... after a woman approached the centre's security guards. It is alleged she caught an Albany Creek man taking unauthorised photos of her while she was in a change room in a store... the man's phone allegedly contained video images of three women. (more)
First things first -- Keifer Bonvillain was arrested two years ago after allegedly recording conversations he had with an O employee and then shopping the tapes around to publishers and tabloids.The Feds ended up dismissing the case against Mr. Villain (sic) on the grounds he perform 50 hours community service, undergo drug testing and pay back $3,000 he took from a company looking to meet with him over the tapes.Fast forward to the present, when Keifer filed the $180 million lawsuit claiming Oprah and an attorney made false statements that led to his arrest. (more) (background)
...Mystic X-Ray Vision
It may sound bizarre—or like some kind of high school science fair project, but it's not: Researchers have discovered that peeling adhesive tape ejects enough radiation to take an x-ray image.
If they stick, the findings could set the stage for a less expensive x-ray machine that does not require electricity.Lead researcher Carlos Camara, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports in Nature today that his team captured x-rays of a finger on film (positioned behind it) by using a simple tape-peeling device (placed in front of it).
How is that possible? It turns out that radiation is released when tape is ripped from a surface. The reason, says Camara: electrons (negatively charged atomic particles) leap from a surface (peeling off of glass or aluminum works, too) to the adhesive side of a freshly yanked strip of tape, traveling so fast that they give off radiation, or energy, when they slam into it.
The result of this process when recorded by radiographic film is a fuzzy x-ray of the finger bone of physicist Seth Putterman, who runs the lab in which it was made. (more)
FutureWatch...
Italy - Gucci is the latest fashion label to be drawn into Italy's on-going "Spy Story" scandal - of which its former head of womenswear, Alessandra Facchinetti (and recently fired from Valentino), has previously been revealed as a target.A Gucci spokesman yesterday confirmed in a statement that the Prosecutor's Office in Florence had ordered a search of the house's various Italy-based offices in relation to its investigation into the long-running scam, which saw the phones of various politicians, bankers, entrepreneurs, journalists and celebrities being wiretapped over a matter of years."The search is a result of the investigation on suspicion of the crime of revelation and use of official secrets," Gucci's spokesperson said, adding that the company was cooperating fully with the authorities. (more)Just sayin'...Silvio Berlusconi, an Italian politician, entrepreneur, real estate and insurance tycoon, bank and media proprietor, and sports team owner, and now the third longest-serving Prime Minister of the Italian Republic (President of the Council of Ministers of Italy), a position he has held on three separate occasions: from 1994 to 1995, from 2001 to 2006, currently since 2008. (background 1 2 3 )
Satyam Computer Services has denied a report alleging its contractors installed spy software on World Bank computers but has refused to assure Australian clients that it does not engage in such activity.
On October 10 Fox News reported, citing sources, that after a forensic analysis of a security breach at the World Bank, investigators discovered spy software installed on computers at its Washington headquarters "allegedly by one or more contractors from Satyam Computer Services". "It is still not known how much information was stolen, but sources in the bank confirm that servers in the highly restricted treasury unit were deeply penetrated with spy software in April. Invaders also had full access to the rest of the bank's network for nearly a month in June and July. "The software, which operates through a method known as keystroke logging, enabled every character typed on a keyboard to be transmitted to a still-unknown location via the internet."
Satyam declined to guarantee that it (or its contractors) had not installed spying software on computers in any Australian or global customer site. (more)
via Intelligence Online...
According to our sources, the Chinese embassies in Paris, London and Berlin as well as in other European capitals have just received the visit of a team of technicians from the 3rd department of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who specialize in detecting eavesdropping devices on government premises. ($more$)Time to schedule your next TSCM eavesdropping detection audit.
SC - Felony suspects will now have DNA samples taken when they’re arrested, after the South Carolina House on Tuesday joined the Senate in overriding Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto of a bill requiring the procedure.
The samples would be taken when people are arrested for felonies, as well as for eavesdropping or peeping, which are misdemeanors on first offense and felonies thereafter. (more)
from the website...
"Radio controlled sports car with video camera function. A unique toy that combines all the coolest features of a RC car with an added video transmitter for extra fun.
Fun and easy to use RC car kit has everything you need to have a fun day in the park or play some games with your neighbors. The car has a remote control with an extra long range (up to 30 meters) and can control the cars movement by eyesight or via the LCD monitor. 
Tired of ripping this baby around the park or neighborhood? Then how about using your new RC sports car to play laser games with your friends? Yes, you got that right! This sports car has a laser function and can be used to play lasertag with your friends. And the fun isn't even over yet! You can also use the cars video transmission function to view what the neighbors are doing ;-) "
(more)
Modern bugging and wiretapping sprouted in the late 1940's and was really blooming big-time by the 1960's. Miniature electron tubes and the newly invented transistor were the seeds. The seediest places were New York City and Los Angeles. 
