Original subtitles

[atmospheric music plays]

[narrator] Spies conduct surveillance to learn their enemies' secrets.

The benefit of bugging your enemies

is to obtain information that you can use and pass on.

[narrator] To do this, spies use stealth

and the most cutting-edge surveillance technology.

There were hundreds of microphones put in the exterior walls of the building.

The only way to make that building secure

was to chop off the top three floors and throw it away.

[narrator] When intelligence agencies don't have access, they get creative.

The idea to create a microphone

inside a bullet,

and actually fire it from a gun

and it would be able to pick up communications and transmit it out.

[intense music playing]

[narrator] And when they need to track you, they can.

[man] You can't go anywhere and do anything

without leaving a trail or a sort of digital dust

of who you are and where you've been.

[theme music playing]

[narrator] Rulers, governments,

lovers, and corporations have been doing it for centuries.

Spying to gain information, assess potential threats,

stop attacks and gain the upper hand.

Today, intelligence agencies

carry out espionage operations

using cutting-edge surveillance devices,

from tiny eavesdropping microphones

to subminiature video cameras and drone technology.

For a spy to have an idea of what an enemy is doing,

there is perhaps no better way than if the spy could eavesdrop somehow.

Good surveillance is always dependent

on the best available technology.

So, if we look back a hundred years ago to World War I,

the height of aerial audio surveillance

was giant microphones

that could hear, directionally, planes coming from miles away.

That was the best technology that was available at the time.

Today, cameras can spot a plane at 50 miles away.

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[narrator] The use of bugs became a common technique

used for surveillance by intelligence agencies

in the 1950s and '60s,

and usually combined a miniature radio transmitter with a microphone

that could also be operated on batteries.

The small size of the transmitter

and the ability to easily conceal in various objects

made it a "go-to" for spies.

One creative example for surveillance

was developed by the STB,

Czechoslovakia's intelligence agency, in the 1970s.

Their target: the US ambassador and his imported shoes.

When the shoes arrived, the STB intercepted them

and modified them with an eavesdropping device.

He had a maid who took care of all of his clothes,

that did the pressing, the polishing the shoes and all that,

then when she gave him the shoes in the morning, she would pull the pin out

and the batteries would start the transmitter running again.

Well, he wore those shoes to the office,

and some people who were using radios,

listening for potential bugs in the embassy,

detected his voice.

[narrator] A counter-surveillance team detected a signal

coming from the ambassador as he moved around the embassy grounds.

It soon became clear that the ambassador was actually wearing a listening device.

[Parrack] So, in the process of taking

various articles of clothing off of him,

they finally found that someone had modified the heel of the shoe

to contain a transmitter and a battery pack.

And that's a case of a low-tech transmitter, uh…

that could be picked up by a normal radio receiver,

where you could hear the voice

and identify who it was and where it was.

[narrator] This wasn't the first time a US ambassador

had been the target of covert surveillance.

An early listening device called the Passive Cavity Resonator,

also known as "the thing,"

was invented for the KGB by Leon Theremin,

the famous musician and Russian scientist, in 1945.

It contained no electrical parts and is still marveled at today.

To work, a signal emitter would beam an ultra-high-frequency radio signal

to an antenna inside the Passive Cavity Resonator,

pick up conversations, then beam them back to a receiver.

[Gerald B. Richards] Passive Cavity Resonator is basically

a device that will only be activated,

uh, upon some radio wave or microwave.

Since it's not transmitting anything,

you wouldn't pick it up under normal circumstances.

[narrator] In August 1945, US ambassador to Russia, Averell Harriman,

received one hidden inside a special gift.

They were Russian versions of Boy Scouts,

presented the US ambassador a magnificent carved wooden statue

of the Great Seal of the United States.

And he proudly hung it up on a wall on back of his desk.

Uh, and every time the Russians would burst a specific microwave,

right through the wall from another building,

it would turn, basically turn it on,

and anything you discussed in his office, they could hear.

[Melton] And for seven years, every word in his office

could be recovered from the Russian listening post

across the street.

[Parrack] And it was only found by accident.

When they took the seal apart, there was a disc in it about the size of a quarter,

about a half inch thick, that was the microphone.

And there was a metal rod about a foot long

that was connected to the microphone,

that ran down the back of the plaque in the eagle.

That rod was an antenna.

From across the street, the Russians transmitted a radio signal.

The antenna picked up that signal in his residence.

It was strong enough to power the microphone

and transmit the voice back on a different frequency.

Using radio bugs against ambassadors is not something new.

[narrator] The Russian intelligence agencies are masters

in the art of surveillance and have an ongoing and pervasive system in place

to collect intelligence against the US.

Throughout the 1960s and '70s,

microphones were found in various places inside the US Embassy.

Every time one was discovered,

the KGB got more creative with where they'd hide them.

Some typewriters were found modified in the American Embassy in Moscow.

Inside that typewriter was a structural piece of aluminum

that went from one side of the typewriter to the other.

What the Soviets had done through a shipping channel,

uh, is basically took the typewriters apart

and replaced that bar with a bar that looked exactly the same,

but had been machined out.

And discreet electronics had been put inside that aluminum bar,

which appeared on the surface to be solid, but it actually was hollowed out.

What the electronics would do,

every single key that was typed on the typewriter would be stored

in a pretty small buffer inside that bar,

and when the buffer was full,

the contents of that buffer would be transmitted through an RF signal

to a nearby Soviet listening post.

This went on for a decade at least.

[narrator] The typewriter incident became known as the Gunman Project.

[Gosler] We ended up finding about 16 of these things

between the US embassies in Moscow and Leningrad.

We have to imagine those kinds of operations being conducted

against today's technology.

And kind of the parallel would be the… from the typewriter in Gunman

to a software or hardware implant in your laptop

that's basically infinitely more complex than that typewriter.

We built a new embassy in Moscow in the late 1970s,

that was built by Russian labor using Russian material,

and before they started putting the brickwork up for the walls,

we did some examination of the columns and beams and found out

that almost every column and beam had a gift in it from the Russians.

There were microphones in the exterior walls of the building.

Many, many hundreds of microphones were disconnected

from the walls of the building.

[tense music playing]

The only way to make that building secure

was to chop off the top three floors or so of the building

and throw it away and rebuild them

using US labor and US material that was pouched in from the United States.

[narrator] The Russians aren't the only ones doing the spying.

The United States intelligence agencies have done their fair share

of surveillance activities against the Russians as well.

One operation codenamed Octopus

targeted the Russian Embassy in Washington.

So the design for the Russian Embassy had a large flat roof.

And there were outside pipes for the runoff from the roof.

Well, the NSA arranged for one section of pipe…

for an optical illusion.

You looked at it and you thought it was empty,

but actually the walls were thicker in the middle.

And in that one section of pipe, they put a radio receiver,

a small explosive charge,

and a spool with hundreds of feet of wire.

They connected all of the microphones in the building at that point

through the wall and attached them to this one section of drainpipe.

The key was, how do you then get the wires out?

And they waited for a summer rainstorm in Washington,

and they timed the thunder strikes

to where the thunderbolt hit near the embassy,

at the same time they remotely triggered a small explosion in the pipe.

And it caused the parachute to deploy into the drain.

It quickly filled with water and it flushed down into the drain system

and it was trailed by two tiny wires that were coming from the spool.

Waiting for it down in the underground drain system

was a young FBI officer

who was sitting there with a net catching the parachute.

He did.

He got the wires and they had built in a box right there at that point.

They were able to connect the wires. The wires went to an FBI listening post.

And at that point, they could recover digital audio

from every room they'd targeted inside the Russian Embassy.

[narrator] Surveillance often requires having to physically send an agent

to hide a listening device in remote and dangerous locations.

One operation, called Operation Ivy Bells, was conducted 400 feet underwater.

The Soviets had installed an unencrypted communication cable

on the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk

between their most important naval base and the Kremlin,

believing it was completely secure.

But the US Navy figured out a way to break in.

First they created a mixed gas

which allowed the divers to dive for prolonged periods of time.

The navy divers would be transported close to the site,

then walk along the bottom of the sea

in complete darkness to the underwater cable.

They found that they could put an inductive clamp,

which went around the cable,

and it was able to copy any data that passed through the cable.

It had large recorders built in,

and they would regularly send a submarine.

It would park on the bottom very nearby.

They had a lockout system for divers.

They would simply go out, swap out the reels,

put in fresh recording media, head back to the sub, pop in.

They'd head back, and then they'd analyze it.

[narrator] Dozens of different lines ran through the cable,

so they needed to separate them in order to hear individual voices.

Operation Ivy Bells proved to be an intelligence goldmine,

providing the US with invaluable information

about the Soviet naval operation for the next decade.

The creative minds of espionage even have innovative solutions

for conducting audio surveillance when access is impossible.

[Melton] The CIA had a target of two Russians in Mexico City.

The problem was, the area was secure.

So someone had the idea to create

a microphone and a transmitter

inside a bullet, a projectile,

and actually fire it from a gun

so it would embed itself in the tree near where they'd be speaking

and would be able to pick up communications and transmit it out.

And they were able to successfully design a device

that could withstand the Gs of the force

as it was shot and it stopped suddenly in the tree.

[narrator] Today listening devices can be concealed almost anywhere,

and they've also become even harder to detect.

The Nagra credit card is one of the most effective

and sophisticated listening devices available on the market.

[narrator] The Nagra CCR is a device

developed by a Swiss company in 2013,

available only to law enforcement and the intelligence community.

[Melton] It can be imprinted with the face of an American Express card.

It could be imprinted with the face of a standard US government badge

that you'd use for your credentials to enter a building.

Think how effective it could be if you're wearing your ID badge around your neck

but you've substituted the Nagra.

Then anywhere you're walking, you're digitally recording information

and storing it internally inside that card.

And once you leave the premises,

you simply download it to a computer, or you upload it to the cloud.

Makes it just a particular threat to an intelligence service.

[narrator] High-tech listening devices can pick up voices,

store signals digitally, and transmit that information

to a listening post almost anywhere in the world.

[Richards] Well, the cell phone is really problematic

in the world of espionage,

because, one, most of the time you're being tracked.

You can be tracked by your cell phone.

So it is a real problem from a security standpoint.

But it is a real boon as far as using it for spying on other people.

[Parrack] Denied areas are typically places

that you're going to be under surveillance or hostile control.

When we're traveling and we're taking everything of importance to us…

All of our digital information,

our credit cards, our passports now have RFID chips.

Protecting that data becomes more difficult.

So if you pass through a narrow portal…

hypothetically, that little tunnel that you walk through when you…

before you get to immigrations and you've always wondered why it's so narrow

and it looks like an aluminum tunnel that you're walking through…

well, it's very possible that unless your credit cards and passport

are in a shielded pouch, all the data's been sucked off.

That does not necessarily mean it will be manipulated,

but your data has been taken.

And the ability to put an RFID chip and hide it on objects

or hide it in your clothing is a new piece of surveillance technology.

[narrator] The benefit of bugging and listening to your enemy

is to obtain information that can be used and passed on,

but being able to watch their activities is just as important.

Intelligence agencies train and employ special teams

to perform the role of visual surveillance using handheld optical devices,

night vision equipment and film and video cameras.

Cameras may be set up for long-term surveillance

or miniaturized for concealment on the spy's body or on their belongings.

[Richards] One of the things is, is a pen that has a small camera in it.

You could put it in your coat pocket.

There are subminiature cameras now you can buy for under $100

that are so small you can place anywhere and Wi-Fi them all over the world.

Those are the things that we're dealing with today.

They lend themselves to a whole new type of spying.

[narrator] Having the capability to listen in on your adversaries' secrets

is a key strategy in espionage,

but getting an aerial view or eye-in-the-sky is crucial

in tracking the movement of targets, military personnel

and weaponry of the enemy.

It's the wish of every person to say,

"I wish I had that bird's-eye view, or I could have my eye-in-the-sky,

because then I could see what's happening over the next hill or in the next town."

So satellites are today, literally,

an effective eye-in-the-sky.

Their weakness, however, is that it's hard and expensive to move satellites.

[whirring]

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And what's replaced them is now drones.

Drones with an extended range, 40, 42 hours.

They can hover in place and provide you literally with that mobile eye-in-the-sky

that you can deploy,

have it anywhere you want, and you're not risking a human pilot.

So, the modern-day drone is probably…

the ideal eye-in-the-sky for tactical situations.

[indistinct communication over radio]

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[Richards] There are drones that are very small,

that have been developed by different agencies.

Again, whatever you're using has to be practical for the job you're doing.

[narrator] Some advancements in airborne surveillance systems

use wide-angle motion imagery

which greatly expands the power that a camera attached to a drone can have,

allowing it to track thousands of moving targets at once,

both forwards and backwards and across cities.

One system called the Gorgon Stare is the ultimate eye-in-the-sky,

a $15 million military surveillance drone built by the Pentagon,

intended to help prevent terrorist attacks.

It can zoom in on particular parts of the imagery on the ground

while being able to record everything else.

More impressive are its resolution capabilities of 1.8 billion pixels,

allowing for imagery resolution 150 times more powerful than an iPhone.

The existence of secret information-gathering programs

by the US National Security Agency,

leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013,

shed light on the reach of surveillance,

not just for national security and espionage operations,

but on the civilian population.

One country that's collecting detailed profiles on all of its citizens

by applying recent advances in artificial intelligence and data mining

to their surveillance capabilities is China.

Along with their robust arsenal of surveillance devices,

they've also developed drones that look like real birds.

The robotic flock is so lifelike that actual birds fly alongside them

while it surveils the surrounding and its citizens.

Codenamed "Dove" by China,

the birds are equipped with a camera, GPS antenna and data link

to communicate their findings back to intelligence.

In a case like China, you're seeing them use modern Western-style technology

and surveillance-related technologies

to basically enact a social credit system within their people.

What that really is, is they're using data to analyze everything about you

in terms of who you are, who do you talk to,

what are your opinions, what you blog about, what you search,

what you like, what you not like, and that assesses a credit or risk score to you.

An example of how social credit systems have been theorized to be used is,

if you have a high credit, you qualify for the best scholarships,

the best jobs. You're allowed to travel overseas.

Uh, if you characterize or you hang out with the wrong folks,

or you post negative commentary against the regime

or the governmental policies, your credit score takes a hit.

What that means is, in some cases, you can't qualify for certain jobs,

you can't qualify for certain academic institutions or loans,

or in some cases, are restricted in terms of where and when you can travel

inside the country, let alone abroad.

There's a certain bit of 1984 in terms of what you're seeing happening in China.

There's a lot of debate to what extent this is being rolled out inside China,

but there's no doubt that they are actively using

Western-developed technologies that can be used for, in my opinion,

for the good causes

in terms of benefiting society.

They're using it to restrict, control, and monitor their people.

[narrator] As digital technology becomes more widespread,

the opportunities for intelligence agencies

to gather information grows as well.

You can't go anywhere and do anything

without leaving some trail or digital dust of who you are and where you've been,

whether it's cookies that correlate back to your search results,

whether it's travel patterns based on where you log into the Internet

or where you carry your smartphone.

Who would have thunk 50 years ago

that everyone would voluntarily carry with them a beacon

that would capture every last bit of their lives?

We kind of have that, a cell phone, an Alexa,

checking in on social media.

That basically creates an overt playbook

of what you're doing with your life.

They pose challenges for the collection world.

How do you collect this information?

How do you filter the wheat from the chaff

to get the high-tech information, or the high-end interest information

that you want out of all of this data?

it's a challenging future.

[narrator] Electronic surveillance gives intelligence agencies insights

into what is said, planned, and anticipated by adversaries,

but because such huge quantities of communication

now travel through the Internet,

algorithms or other search methods have been developed

to process large amounts of collected data

to identify specific intelligence objectives

like anticipating terrorist attacks

and gaining the advantage on the foreign policy plans of adversaries.

[Gosler] One thing that we have to do within the United States is make sure

that all parts of the government work together as an integrated team.

[Melton] So, at the Naval Academy the motto is,

Ex tridens scientia, "Through knowledge, sea power."

Well, I would say, through knowledge, intelligence services

will become ever more efficient at spying,

as well as at catching spies.

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