Surveillance Techniques Quotes

Our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union.

We've evolved a lot since 9/11 also, in terms of our law enforcement capabilities, our intelligence capabilities, military, counterterrorism.

In all the years I've taught at the FBI Academy, I've only seen crime get easier, faster, and harder to detect.

Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity; They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness; Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports; Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of warfare; If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told.

The terrorists that attacked us in San Bernardino was an American citizen, born and raised in this country. And I bet you we wish we would have had access to five years of his records so we could see who he was working with...

I feel that I, and the people under my command, tried to use all the traditional methods of recruiting agents which were also used by other intelligence services; adopting also means like pressure, money, sex - but that did not characterize my service.

The way the United States intelligence community operates is it doesn't limit itself to the protection of the homeland. It doesn't limit itself to countering terrorist threats, countering nuclear proliferation. It's also used for economic espionage, for political spying to gain some knowledge of what other countries are doing.

It is a little-known fact about covert operations that you will spend a lot of time with people you can’t really trust. They may be traitors and liars. We call them assets or informants. But mostly, in those days, I called him Zach.

They [spies] cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness.

I trained with the FBI in Portland and I also had many conversations with female FBI agents in Los Angeles, as well. That was again something that also came in very handy for Basic, because I'd learned already how to handle a gun and how to behave just physically when you're in a situation, a threat. That was very good to know.

ISIS went to school on how we were collecting intelligence on terrorist organizations by using telecommunications technologies. And when they learned that from the [Edward] Snowden disclosures, they were able to adapt to it and essentially go silent.

Even though intense focus on Iran's nuclear program has presumably increased the volume of intelligence gathered about it, it remains true that intelligence officers tend to rely heavily on a few trusted sources.

We sit for a week and listen to an extraordinary amount of people talk about what they do in the intelligence world. It's pretty overwhelming.

Counterintelligence is, in effect, chasing ghosts, which is why the tools used to investigate foreign intelligence activity are secret, like human sources or electronic surveillance.

The laws for the control of terrorists were framed at a time when the terrorists did not have the technology available to them today…. There is a case for re-examining those laws.

Improve human intelligence to get Osama bin Laden.

Law enforcement has always had informants and people they've had to deal with, who walk a certain line. They're choosing between the lesser of two evils. They're befriend one person to gain access to another person, who's a bigger fish.

Most people think spies are afraid of guns, or KGB guards, or barbed wire, but in point of fact the most dangerous thing they face is paper. Papers carry secrets. Papers carry death warrants. Papers like this one, this folio with its blurry eighteen year old faked missile photographs and estimates of time/survivor curves and pervasive psychosis ratios, can give you nightmares, dragging you awake screaming in the middle of the night.

The men and the women in the CIA, they do their job regardless of who is in the White House. Same for NSA. Same for FBI. These men and women are putting themselves in harm's way. Have to deal with difficult situations.

Secondly, not only have we put additional agents on counterterrorism, but we've also built up our analytical structure so that we're better positioned to analyze the information we have.

The difficulties of conducting espionage against the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union were such that historically the Agency had backed away from the task.

Yes. I did more research than I ever wanted to and saw some things I wish I didn't. I went on ride-alongs, spent time with Homicide, Cold Case, and SVU detectives, hung out in subways learning how to spot pervs and pick-pockets, viewed an autopsy, went to a police firing range, and witnessed court cases and I read, read, read.

When I was growing up, my stepmother's sister was the chief detective in one of the adjoining towns, so she piqued my interest in crime.

Espionage, for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust.

With the growing availability of commoditized encryption, it is becoming easier for common criminals to communicate beyond the reach of traditional surveillance.