MI5 Persecution: Surveillance methods 5/8/95 (5452)

From: Pamela Willoughby <pjw31@willouby.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 1995 18:08:32 GMT
Organization: Myorganisation
Lines: 15
Message-ID: <142297143wnr@willouby.demon.co.uk>

>Hmmm, strange eh.
>I mentioned all this goings on to my boyfriend, who works for the
>British intelligence service, and he assures me this sort of thing
>never goes on.. not ever...honest.
>Though he said the name was familiar...

it does go on, although it's an open question who does it.

Some time ago there were press reports of an Army intelligence person
called Jones who claimed Diana and Hewitt had been photographed in a
compromising position... he said he'd been doing this as part of an
Army unit which had previously operated in Northern Ireland.

Then Hewitt said he'd been told the same thing by some Army people,
and that they were threatening to release the tapes unless they
curtailed their liaison... as per usual everyone denied everything,
painted Jones as the "Jones twins" - not very original in how
they deal with their perceived enemies, are they?

You have to wonder how they manage to achieve this sort of
surveillance though. Audio you can understand, it's possible to put
a microphone through the wall, and apparently there exist devices
which will retrieve sound from a laser beam bounced off a window -
sounds sci-fi, but there's a well known surveillance electronics
company in London which sells these things.

But how would you get video out of a room, unless you had actual
physical access in order to plant a device for pickup? We're not
talking about looking in from afar, but an actual device within
the room. You could either drill through the wall and shove a
pickup through; or you could supply a trojan device with a hidden
pickup inside; but most likely, you would have to physically break
into your target room to plant a camera. That's not an infeasible
option; all it means is having your target(s) watched to make sure
they're not in the vicinity, then you negotiate any locks on the
property and find a suitable receptacle for your device.

The next question is how they defeat the usual methods of counter-
surveillance. We had private detectives carry out a "sweep" of
every room and the telephone line. They found nothing. That
indicates at least four possibilities that I can think of;
(this is all guesswork BTW, and probably fanciful guesswork
at that!)

1) no bugs (pull the other one)

2) radio-transmitting devices which can be controlled from an
external source, ie you can instruct them to switch off
when you detect a counter-surveillance sweep taking place

3) hard-wired devices; probe microphones or whatever they're
called, things you poke through the wall

4) passive surveillance devices; so you bounce laser or
radio waves off a suitable reflecting surface (again,
sounds far-fetched but such things may apparently exist).

5) there is a fifth possibility, that the PI's didn't detect
an actual transmitting device; there are technologies
specifically designed to avoid detection, eg frequency hopping
and suchlike. But how much sophistication could you build in
to a device which would have to be small enough to be
physically concealable?

I guess the real question is to find out who is ultimately
behind these "goings on". And if the "great and good" (or
the better known, at any rate) can't protect themselves,
what hope is there for the rest of us?

5452


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