IP: Well maybe a real urban leg. Acoustic Kitty

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Reply-To: <tbridis () ap org>
> From: "Ted Bridis" <tbridis () ap org>
> To: <farber () cis upenn edu>, <denning () cs georgetown edu>
>
>
> >>... this is an urban legand<<
>
> Our intelligence writer wrote about "acoustic kitty" two months ago. It
> might be urban legend, I suppose, but there is a paper trail. Here's the
> redacted CIA document, "Subject: [deleted] Views on Trained Cats
> [deleted] for [deleted] Use"
>
> http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB54/st27.pdf
>
> Date: Mon Sep 10 20:06:02 2001
> Copyright 2001 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
> a0743‡-----
> r wbx
> ^BC-Spy Research,410<
> ^CIA satellites worked, spy cats didn't, recently declassified documents
> show<
> ^By JOHN J. LUMPKIN=
> ^Associated Press Writer=
> ¶   WASHINGTON (AP) _ Soviet-tracking psychics and cats wired as mobile
> eavesdropping platforms didn't work out so well. But CIA proposals for
> spy planes and satellites to peer on America's adversaries from above
> became resounding successes.
> ¶   Recently declassified documents, released Monday by the National
> Security Archive, detail some of the successful _ and silly _ research
> of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology.
> ¶   The CIA designed and operated spy satellites for years, until the
> separate National Reconnaissance Office took over many of those duties,
> said Jeffrey T. Richelson, a researcher with the archive and author of
> "The Wizards of Langley," a book detailing the directorate's efforts.
> The directorate also developed the U-2 and A-12 spy planes. Another of
> its advances turned into an integral part of the pacemaker.
> ¶   In the 1960s, under a program code-named Palladium, scientists
> trying to design stealthy aircraft figured out how to insert ghost
> planes on Soviet radar screens. Assisted by the National Security
> Agency, the CIA eavesdropped on Soviet radar operators and determined
> the sensitivity of particular Soviet radars.
> ¶   While the CIA's scientific successes have become part of the U.S.
> inventory of spy techniques, its follies are notable as well, Richelson
> said.
> ¶   Many of those have been previously documented in books about the
> CIA. The multiagency plan to use psychics _ called "remote viewers" _ to
> map Soviet military bases and 1950s research into interrogation drugs
> are well-known.
> ¶   Another project, known as "Acoustic Kitty," involved wiring a cat
> with transmitting and control devices, allowing it to serve as a mobile
> listening post.
> ¶   A heavily redacted 1967 government memo released by the archive
> Monday suggests that cats can be altered and trained, but concludes the
> program wouldn't work.
> ¶   "The program would not lend itself in a practical sense to our
> highly specialized needs," it says. "The environmental and security
> factors in using this technique in a real foreign situation force us to
> conclude that, for our ... purposes, it would not be practical."
> ¶   In the first test of feline surveillance, the cat was run over by a
> taxi, according to Richelson.
> ¶   ___
> ¶   On the Net:
> ¶   Central Intelligence Agency: http://www.cia.gov
> ¶   National Security Archive: http://www.nsarchive.org


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