Secrets of the FBI | Think on That!

The Secrets Of The FBI | On Point with Tom Ashbrook.

In this episode of On Point, Tom interviews Ron Kessler, author and investigative journalist who recently released a new book, Secrets of the FBI.

Some of the most fascinating revelations are about TacOps, or ?Tactial Operations.?? This is what the FBI calls their special division that infiltrates, spies on, or bugs targeted individuals or entities.? Here are some excerpts from Ron?s book about TacOps as collected through interviews with Louis E. Grever, FBI Agent with TacOps for 12 years:

When Grever met with the TacOps team on the FBI Academy grounds in Quantico, Virginia, he learned that it conducts supersecret, court- authorized burglaries to implant hidden microphones and video cameras and to snoop into computers and desks in homes, offices, cars, yachts, airplanes, and embassies. In any given year, TacOps conducts as many as four hundred of what the FBI calls covert entries. Eighty percent are conducted in national security cases relating to terrorism or counterintelligence.

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Usually, the phone company can install a court- ordered wiretap within minutes by entering the target number in its computers and transmitting the conversation over an encrypted broadband link to any FBI field office. But if a physical entry is required, TacOps takes over.

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?When our operators are home with family, they are simply Special Agent John or Jane Doe, but as soon as they leave the house and particularly when on a job, they become Jim Brown, Hector Garcia, or Andrea Simmons, complete with all the right documents, including alias driver?s license, passport, and credit cards, and all the right stories, including fake family, fake job, and fake history? all fully backstopped,? Grever says.

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Arrangements for undercover operations are made by an FBI program code- named Stagehand. If $2 million in cash is needed as front money, Stagehand provides it. If a yacht or airplane is needed as a prop, Stagehand can provide one that was confiscated in a criminal case.

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They hide inside the office building until occupants have left for the evening, then break into the targeted office. They may hide in a telephone utility closet or on top of an elevator. In one such case involving terrorism, TacOps agents rode up and down on top of an elevator for hours.

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In some cases, agents are delivered to a compound inside a sealed shipping carton. In the middle of the night, like soldiers in a Trojan horse, they emerge and break into the target facility. To break into a home, an agent sealed in a refrigerator carton may be delivered to the front door, where the carton shields him from passersby as he works on the locks.

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To make sure they are not caught, TacOps assigns field office agents or special surveillance teams to follow occupants of homes or offices? called ?keyholders?? to watch them to see if they start to return. If they do, agents tailing them radio that they are heading back and estimate the time it will take them to return. Agents working the premises know their own ?breakdown time,? how long it will take them to gather their equipment and leave without a trace.

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Perhaps there is a ?sudden traffic jam,? Grever says. Or there could be an ?accident in front of them, or police could pull them over. There could be a little local natural disaster? a fire hydrant is turned on and is flooding the street, and they have to go around the back way.? Letting the air out of tires is another
stratagem.

The above excerpts only scratch the surface of the deception that the FBI engages in to collect the sensitive information they need.? In the audio, Kessler relates a strategy where TacOps will photograph a house in high resolution, print out a giant tarp facade of the house, then use this frontal cover to mask everything the FBI is doing ?underneath.?

NeilS ? So if you were wondering if James Bond style intelligence agents really exist, here is your answer.? Of course, they might not be as suave as Mr. Bond, but they still use a great multitude of resources and tactics in order to get the information they need whether it be from a foreign entity, drug cartel, or terrorist organization.

The enormous power that the FBI wields is supposed to protect and serve the public of the United States of America.? Hopefully they will keep their priorities in line so as to use these resources for the betterment of society, and not as a tool to strike fear in the public.

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Source: http://www.thinkonthat.com/archives/3138?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-secrets-of-the-fbi

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