Spycraft - Melton [233]
Mobile observation posts, using surveillance cameras carried by a person on foot, or riding on a bicycle, car, train, or aircraft, add another capability for covert collection. Concealment requirements and the need to compensate for the target’s movement limit the choice of cameras for mobile posts when compared to the fixed sites. At close range to the target, traditional camera systems will often be concealed beneath the user’s clothing or inside a briefcase or purse. The ubiquitous presence of cell phones and their integrated imaging features fundamentally altered the nature of visual surveillance by creating the reality that any action done in public is likely to have been photographed by someone.
Historically, for intelligence photography, 35mm cameras with varying lengths of standard and telephoto lenses provided the highest possible level of detail (resolution) in still images. In 2001, with the advent of the Nikon D1X (5.9 million effective pixels), OTS accelerated its movement toward digital imaging for all photographic requirements.
At greater distances, cameras with long lenses make a target appear closer and enlarge the image on the film media. These telephoto lenses could be 500mm, 1,000mm, 2,000mm, or even longer.2 A lens 300mm or longer is almost impossible to hand-hold without a tripod or other means of support. The commercially available Questar Seven 2,800mm lens with a 35mm camera and tripod can read the numbers on a license plate from more than two miles away with adequate lighting and favorable atmospheric conditions.3
Because surveillance pictures using film cameras are often taken at night during periods of little light, careful selection of available light, ultra-high-speed film, or infrared materials are required. Available-light photography requires the fastest available film and steady support. The sensitivity of commercially available ultra-high-speed film to ASA 6400 can be “push processed” to sensitivity above ASA 50,000 by manipulating the developing time, development temperature, or both.4 At these extreme ASA levels, it is possible to photograph a subject at night illuminated by a single birthday candle. Infrared surveillance photography that takes place at the end of the light spectrum is not visible to the unaided eye and requires only a standard 35mm camera, infrared film, and a strobe flash unit with an infrared filter .5
The spring-wound advance on the German robot camera could be remotely activated while the camera remained concealed in a leather attaché case.
“Tracking devices,” particularly beacons, aid mobile surveillance when close surveillance is impractical or undesirable. Tracking devices are selected based on the nature of the target and operational issues. In practice, beacons are most useful in tracking inanimate objects such as vehicles and shipping containers. Success in implanting a covert beacon inside the human body, despite assertions by some that “my teeth contain government-installed devices,” eluded the CIA. Contrary to certain remarkable scenes in spy movies, OTS found that human behavior, combined with technical limitations imposed by laws of physics, made “personal beaconing” practically impossible.
Beacons are considered both strategic and tactical. Tactical beacons, monitored from ground receivers, are usually located within a short range of the target; strategic beacons may be monitored from a highflying aircraft or satellites. Most clandestine beacons use a small radio frequency transmitter to broadcast a navigational signal to the surveillance team. For example,