A Web of Spies
Like everything else, the world of espionage is becoming a part of the World Wide Web. Government intelligence agencies have home pages, espionage-related information is available in gigabytes, and you can even order CIA-quality technology online. Here's a quick guide:
GOVERNMENT SITES:
United States:
Central Intelligence Agency
The CIA'S Web site offers agency history and general information, FAQs, links, and an exhibit center featuring espionage-related gadgets. There is also a page for prospective job applicants that unabashedly trades on the "intrigue" of espionage; here you can find job postings for everything from "Clandestine Services trainee" to "Leather and Fabric Craft Specialist." There is also a somewhat disappointing "Virtual Picture Tour."
The site was hacked in 1996, which explains the stern warning on the home page.
CIA's Home Page for Kids
The CIA hopes to project a friendly image to children through its special Web site for kids. These pages offer more simplified information and items of special appeal to children, such as the page about the CIA canine corps.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The FBI's recently redesigned home page offers the expected history and general information, as well as career information and the ever-popular "10 Most Wanted" fugitives list. The site also offers declassified documents regarding the Rosenberg case and other counterintelligence tidbits, though most of the site is dedicated to the FBI's role as a domestic crime-fighting organization. Like the CIA, the FBI is reaching out to children with a "Kids and Youth Educational Page."
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency has a more Spartan site than their friends at the CIA and FBI, but it offers some interesting content. Highlights include a sampling of exhibits from the National Cryptological Museum, a collection of images and documents related to the Venona project, and a collection of material related to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Department of Defense's military intelligence agency offers a bare-bones site with general information, an employment guide, and not much more.
National Reconnaissance Office
The NRO designs, builds and operates the nation's reconnaissance satellites. Its Web site includes news about current satellite programs, archival documents and imagery from Corona, the nation's first photo reconnaissance satellite system.
NACIC
A child of the National Security Council, the National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC) coordinates the U.S. government's counterintelligence efforts. The Web site is chiefly a collection of links to official documents (annual reports to Congress, etc.), but it also offers advice to business travelers about economic espionage overseas and tips to businesses on protecting information through computer network firewalls.
Other:
MI5
The Web site for the United Kingdom's MI5 Security Service, dedicated to rooting out "threats from overseas and ... preventing and detecting serious crime." The site is a general information and public relations clearinghouse. A page offering career information encourages you to apply if you are of "the highest integrity, resilient, and sensitive to others."
Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz (BfV)
The Web site of the German BfV counterintelligence service. In German.
STUDY AND RESEARCH:
National Security Archive
The National Security Archive is a non-governmental, non-profit organization founded in 1985 to provide a centralized home for formerly secret U.S. government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Some of this material is available on the archive's Web site, including declassified CIA reports and decrypted Venona files.
Cold War International History Project
CWIHP seeks to disseminate new information on Cold War history emerging from previously inaccessible sources in the former communist bloc. Many formerly secret documents are available on CWIHP's Web site, including the KGB's 1967 annual report and analyses of Eastern-bloc espionage.
Jane's IntelWeb
From the publishers of Jane's Defence Weekly, this Web site provides "a daily monitor of worldwide terrorist movements and developments in the global intelligence community." Subscription-based.
Intelligence Resource Program (from the Federation of American Scientists)
One of the most comprehensive, informative sites on the Web. Offers information on all major intelligence agencies, news reports and analysis, a gallery of imagery intelligence (U-2 reconnaissance photos, satellite images, etc.), and much more.
Privacy International
PI was formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations; the site is administered by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington. The site provides news, resources and an Internet home for the Big Brother Awards, given to the companies, government agencies and individuals "that have most directly undercut privacy."
Strategic Intelligence
A collection of links from Loyola College
Military Intelligence
A collection of links from Loyola College
'OTHER' PAGES:
Spy & Counterspy
Some people would call this site paranoid. The publishers would have you believe that you should be paranoid, if you live in the United States. Offers "a practical course in freedom skills -- including countersurveillance, antisurveillance, and underground urban activism." The adversary is supposed to be the "the government's secret agencies and goon squads."
The Spy Cafe
Hosted by members of an international private investigation agency known as "Globalscan Investigations," which purportedly works for Fortune 500 companies and employs former CIA and KGB agents, this site provides an online newsletter with updates on everything from "Spies in the Moscow Nightlife" to The Kentucky Professional Investigators Association. "Designed in a sort of humerous fasion [sic]."
Virtual World of Intelligence
A miscellany of links, many to espionage-related sites, others to fringe material on Area 51, UFOs and the like.
SPY TECH VENDORS
Espionage and countersurveillance technology is available online from a number of vendors. Buyer beware: Some of the products may be illegal where you live.
