Electronic bug detection '''''''''''''''''''''''' Electronic bug detection will probably be the most difficult aspect of this entire field, as you will be working on your own, without the aid of much useful information that can be gathered from the telephone company or other agencies. (Most telphone bu gs, except the sophisticated ones, can be detected by an overload on the phone line itself) A good tool for bugging detection is a normal AM-FM radio receiver, portable, with a telescopic antenna. For application, extend the antenna in the room suspecte d of being bugged and tune the receiver carefully from the bottom to the top, covering all the FM frequencies, at the same time, talking to yourself continually. At one point, if a bug is present, you will be able to hear your voice through the receiver, although the voice may be indistishguishable, because of top volume feedback. This feedback will always be a deafening continuous howl, scream, or high-pitched whistle. To learn the exact location of the bug, cut the volume of the receiver, and slowly move around the room. The feedback will increase in volume as you get closer to the bug. When a bug is discovered, there is a moment of confusion and fear in reguards to its elimination. In one sense, destroying a bug is an admission of guilt, and can do nothing more than provoke the enemy to rebug in a more sophisticated manner. For that reason, I would hesitate to remove a bug. Instead I would attempt to use it against the bugger himself, by feeding him flase and misleading information. In some cases the bugger may have taken precautions on this type of detection and, by readjustment of his oscillating capacitor, he may be transmitting on a range below the sensitivity of your radio. In this case employ your television set in the same manner as you did the radio, using the ultrahigh frequency knob. As you move across the range of frequencies, keep your eyes on the picture, until you have found a pattern of dark wavy lines that move in relation to your own voice, coupled with top-volum e feedback. The actual location of the bug is a little more difficult, unless your TV set is battery operated, but by use of several extension cords and slow movement, this can be accomplished. The feedback technique can also be used when the bugging involves (citizens band) walkie-talkie. One of the simplest methods of bugging is to tape down the transmitter button on a cheap walkie-talkie, and plant it to where the conversation is to be hel d. The process of detection is exactly the same as above, except that, instead of using a radio ro TV set, one uses a tunable CB receiver to check for feedback. Although the previous "feedback technique" can be effective, it is time-consuming and not 100 percent efficient. For these reasons, electronic experst have invented an marketed a small meter, which detects transmitters. The interesting problem that th ese experts have overcome was, with all the high-powered radio and TV stations transmitting, how would it be possible for an individual to detect a low-powered transmitter, such as a microphone? This was overcome by simply reversing the gauge. In other words, when the meter was "wide open,"no signal was present. However, the closer the meter was taken to the transmitting device, the less of the reading the meter registers. These fie~- meters are available from most large electronic companies and range in price from about $10 to $200, depending on quality and strength. A device similar to the "strength meter," which a Texas company has marketed, utilizes a small bulb, which blinks only in the presence of a bug. The true value of this device is that it is capable of seperating normal radio wave (which do not affect it ) from the dangerous radio signals emitted from a bug. It is available from Dee Company, Houston, Texas for about $200. If your not electronically minded, or just not equiped to find the tap on your phone, Continental Telephone has a device that allows you, through the use of its meter, to determineif the wire is tapped, and, if so, where it is located. Unfortunately th is device (called "the Private Sentry) costs $250. Electronic jamming '''''''''''''''''' Most of the devices written about so far in this chapter are legal, with regulations placed on their application, but the very possession of certain jamming devices is illegal. These jamming devices basically destroy the effectiveness of a bug rather t han locate it. The reason the FCC has put strict regulations on these is the effect they have on other means of communications, such as completely destroying AM radio reception, rendering TV sets useless, making communications on police band radios impos sible, and even to some degree interfering with aircraft communications. To be truly effective as any-bugging devices they must cover the whole spectrum of radio frequencies, which in turn will cause interference to other outside receivers and transmitte rs. For this reason control is of the essence. When determining what exactly you wish to jam, you must also determine the frequency to be used, so as not to interfere with other signals. If you decide to use a jamming device for an illegal purpose, you must at all cost maintain mobility. (Jamming from the back of a moving truck has been prooven effective) Mobility is necessary, because the FCC also employs detecting and locating devices for use against underground radio stations and unregulated jammin g devices. There are basically two types of jamming devices, the first of which is not manufactured commercially and would have to be built by the individual. This type is called "spa~-gap device," and is more powerful than the other, covering greater distance. The second type is refered to as "the white noise device," and is manufactured by Continental Telephone, Dectron Industries, Inc., and Telsec, with a price range from about $150 to $350, depending on strength. Electronic scramblers ''''''''''''''''''''' Electronic scramblers are devices that simply act as an an~-bug mechanisms by transforming normal speech patterns into unintelligable sounds. The most primative method, outdated today, is recording a message on a tape recorder, and then transmitting it , either by playing it backward or at a different speed. Although this method may momentarily frustrate the bugger, if he has half a brain, it won't take him long to decode your message. The basic principle of scramblers, or any coding device, is to ren der the message useless to anyone except the desired recipient in cont There are several types of electronic scramblers, all effective but all sharing the same disadvantage - price. The most inexpensive one I found in any catalogue ran about $500, but then anyone with the slight knowledge of burglary will not be put off by this obstacle. The most popular type is manufactured by Dectron, and is used as an extension to the telephone. The spech is garbled before it enters the mouthpiece of the phone, and decoded after it has left the receiver. A pair of these run just over $500, but the real disadvantages to these devices is that the individual code your devices are working with is retained in a vault by the company, so that anyone with access to that vault can break down your security. The second device used for scrambling is manufactured by an English company, and it works on the principle of inverting the normal speech patterns. In other words, it makes low notes high, and high notes low. This offers the individual a little bit mo re security, as each person's speech frequency is as differnt as his fingerprints. Their major disadvantage is price. It sells for between $1,000 and $1,500. The third type of scrambler is used only for radio transmission. This device can also be purchased through Dectron, for about the same price as mentioned before. The radio scrambler works on basically the same principle as all other scrambling devices , in that it inverts or disorders the frequency and pitch of the speech pattern while it is being transmitted, and then reverses the garble to render it understandable to the receiver. Mail order & retail electronic outlets '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' I have listed below some of the major electronic mail order and retail outlets. Many companies that sell this type of equipment do so only to police officers, and require the purchaser to prove his relationship with some law enforcement agency. For th at reason they have not been included. These companies listed are all involved in the manufacturing and/or sales of eavesdropping and surveillance equipment. S.A.C. Electronics, 4818 West Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles 18, California Baker Electronics Co., R.R. 3, Greencastle, Indiana (mail-order plans and kits only) Dehart Electronics, P.O. Box 5232, Sarasota, Florida Continental Telephone Supply Co., 17 West 46th Street New York, N.Y. (fantastic catalog) Martel Electronics Sales, Inc., 2356 S. Cotner Ave., Los Angeles, California R & S Research, Inc., 2049 Richmond Ave., Houston, Texas Mittleman Manny, 136 Liberty Street, New York, N.Y. (only custom devices $400 ) Clifton, 11500 N.W. 7th Ave. Miami, Florida Consolidated Acoustics, 1302 Washington Street, Hoboken, N.J. {only listening devices) Ekkottonics Co., P.O. Box 5334, Milwaukee, Wisconsin {(che}) Dectron Industries, Inc., 13901 Saticoy Street Van Nuys, California (only an~-bugging equipment) Dee Co., Box 7263, Houston, Texas 77008 T~-Tron of Dallas, 330 Casa Linda Plaza, Dallas, Texas {(discount bugging equipme}) Security Electronics, 11 East 43rd Street, New York, N.Y. Telephone Dynamics Corp., 1333 Newbridge Road, North Bellmore, N.Y. {(only miniture microphon}) Simlar Electronics, Inc., 3476 N.W. 7th Street, Miami, Florida Tracer Systems, 256 Worth Ave., Plam Beach, Florida The federal Communications Commission and the Supreme Court have been uptight about wiretapping and eavesdropping for some time. They have both passed laws and made regulations concerning electronic surveillance. For these reasons, I would emphasize t he utmost care and knowledge in the application of these devices. What is intersting is the actual wording of the law, where any interstate wireta{(interstate does not mean interstate, it applies to all tapping through some strange log}) except in a matt er of security is against the FCC's regulations and is punishable by a fine of no more than $10,000 or five years in jail. The neat little exception made for security gives all of government agencies, particularly the FBI and the CIA, and all local polic e departments, free license to practice all and any forms fo surveillance without any restrictions. Although certain cases have been dismissed in court cases because of "tainted" methods of collecting evidence, in reality if the government feels an indiv idual is a security ris{(for any reas}) it can produce tapes in court that have been gathered by wiretapping, supposedly not as evidence, but the defendant goes to jail anyway. America, at this point, is operating on a li~-size Monopoly Board. Everyone who isn't in jail or going dirrectly to jail is buying and selling thousands of pieces of paper, with absolute seriousness of purpose, unable to realize that there will be only one winner, and when he gets out of jail, he's going to kick all their asses. Broadcasting free radio ''''''''''''''''''''''' In any underground, throughout history, a prime concern has been communications or propaganda. Propaganda, as a word, has ugly connotations, but in reality it means nothing more than the distribution of information. This country has begun to develop a n underground network of communications, in the many small newspapers which has cropped up all over the country. Although there is a spark, there is also a monstrous lack of communications, once you get outside any of the large metropolitan areas. In pr eparation of writing this book, I had to do a great deal of reference work. In this reading encompassed almost all extremities of the political spectrum, from far left to far right. These extremities are so alike, and could be so powerful if they ever g ot over their preconceived impressions of each other and started to communicate. This is the reason I feel the underground has to take propaganda one step further, from the printed page, to the radio broadcast. The radio is a factor of ext~- ordinary importance. At moments when war fever is more or less palpitating in every one region or a country, the inspiring, burning word increases this fever and communicates it to every one of the future combatants. It ~- plains, teaches, fires, and f~- es the future positions of both friends and enemies. However, the radio should be ruled by the fundamental principle of popular propaganda, which is truth; it is preferable to tell the truth, small in its dimensions, then a large lie artfully embellished. ~-Che Guevara Guerrilla warfare Kwame Nkrumah, in his HANDBOOK OF REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE, also stresses the use of radio propagnda. He breaks it down into two basic forms: The first and most important is the same as Che was writing about in the above quotation, this being to communic ate truth to people of the country about the struggle. Nkrumah takes this idea one step futher, and says that really to communicate the underground must speak on many different levels, and this is a key point. How can an anarchist who has a rig~-wing ba ckground understand or relate to a le~-wing anarchist, who uses Marxist terminology? This forces the underground to communicate with many different frames of reference. This hasn't happened in this country: Everyone from far left to far right is hung up with dogmatic ideals, over used terminology, and is absolutely blind to practicality. Nkrumah's second concept of propaganda is for the purpose of subverting the enemy. An indispensable primarily to battle is to attack the mind of the enemy, to undermine the will to fight so that th result of the battle is decided before the fighting begins. The revoluti~- ary army attacks an irresolute and demoralized army. ~-Nkrumah Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare This use of propaganda to discourage the enemy has also a great place in the struggle that is going on in this country today. It has been used to a small degree, with fantastic success, around military bases. There was a regiment of the National Gaurd that refussed to go to Chicago during the National Democratic Convention. Underground newspapers and handbills have encouraged G.I.'s to dissent and desert, and have shown them that it is possible. The effectiveness demonstrated by this demoralizing fo rm of propagnda depicts nothing more than the real turmoil that exists. The successful effect of this communication has resulted from one aspect of its natu~--that being its passionate reguard for truth. Printing a revolutionary newspaper is a great deal easier than forming a underground radio station. Althought the government has strict restrictions on printed material, it is nothing like the regulations it places on radios and television broadcasting . The FCC runs the radio networks with an iron hand, wih the ever present threat of revoking a license. For this reason, any radio station which is striving to be absolutely free must make the ultimate break with the FCC. This can be accomplished in tw o ways. The first and most dangerous, but at the same time the most effective, is by using high powered equipment, jamming out other stations, from a mobile base of operations. The FCC has incredibly sophisticated equipment, and can locate any pirate r adio station in a matter of minutes. For this reason, mobility is essential. Transmitting from the back of a disguised truck has been used successfully, although the movement of the truck while broadcasting must be constant, never repeating the same pat tern, but at the same time keeping within the broadcast power area. This means of transmission is especially effective at gathering, such as demonstrations and riots to keep people informed as to the movement of the enemy. The best method of obtaining e quipment is building your own, as to buy a large transmitter requires the individual to be licensed. Not only that, it's expensive. You can build your own from plans and equpiment purchased through mail order, from most of the companies listed earlier i n the text file. The second method for getting around the strict FCC regulations is legal. Under the FCC's l~-pow~-transmission regulations, one can legally broadcast below 100 milowatts at any empty space on the AM or FM dial, without registering or being licensed. T he disadvantages are obvious: One can be only broadcast up to one mile. Even within that mile, interference from the hi~-power commercial stations is present. And if enough people get into this form of broadcasting the FCC is going to make some sort of regulation against it. This method is not just theoretical, it has been inplemented on the Lower East Side, by John Giorno and his Guerrilla Radio. He broadcast from the top of the St. Mar~-~-t~-Bowerie's belltower at 1400 on the AM dial, and calims he did everything the FCC said he couldn't. I am sorry to say I did not hear the broadcast, as I was out of the o~-mile area at the time. Telephone and communications sabotage ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Telephone sabotage can be applied on many levels. First I am going to explain what I am not going to write about. I feel there is no need for me to explain how to make free phone calls by telling the operator that you dialed the wrong number, just as I am not going to get into explaining how to use a number 14 washer with scotch take in a pay phone, or cheating on credit card calls, or spitting on a penny. These are all explained in FUCK THE SYSTEM, a pamphlet on living freely in New York City. The interst I have in telephone sabotage is purely communicational and commercial. Commercial inn the sense, that over the past few years my absolute hatred of vending machines and pay phones has led me to break into almost every kind I could find. Parking meters are the easiest by far: All you need is a hammer and chisel or a larg e money wrench. Soda machines are almost as easy, but real delight comes from ripping a Kotex machine off the wall of a womans restroom, or sticking an explosive charge in the coin slot of a pay toilet. I have never been able to break into a pay teleph o~--smash them, yes, put them out of order, but never able to open them up and remove the coins. This is for several reasons: One is the time element, as most public phones are easily seen, and the other is that all public phones are installed with amaz ing locks, which have completely baffled me. To get back to the purpose of this section, I must emphasize the importance of breaking down the enemie's communications. This in turn results in confusion and chaos. Imagine, for a moment, a squad car without menas of communicating with its precinct, or an enemy aircraft with its radio jammed. This act of breaking down the enemy's lines of communications is not and end in itself, rather it is a tact~--a small, but extremely important, part of a total operation. When considering communications, it is best to start from primative base and work up to more sophisticated tactics. The first and simplest method for rendering a telephone inoperative is only temporary. It entails calling the phone company that a cert ain number be disconnected. This will work for individuals, but not for agencies or law enforcement organizations. An important factor in any form of telephone sabotage is the time aspect of verificati~--in other words, the amount of time it takes the phone company to trace a call. The phone company can tell right away if you are calling from a pay phone, so this should be avoided. Call from a private phone which you can not be connected with, and limit your conversation to under ninety seconds. IMP ORTANT: Most law enforcement organizations, companies, corporations, and businesses have more than one phone line, and in most cases one or more will be unlisted. A common misconception is that a person can render a phone useless by dialing a number and, before the party answers, leave the phone off the hook. This si not true, and doesn't work. Even if the caller does not hang up the phone, the receiver can get a dial tone by hanging up himself and holding the hook down for a little over thirty seconds. Although this method does not work in the cit{(I know because I have experimented with }), I have heard reports that it has been used in rurla areas with varyi ng degrees of sucess. I would suggest trying it out with a friend, to see if it is effective in your area. The other truly effective method is the most dangerous. It entails the actual cutting of the phone wires. This is much easier in a rural area where the phone lines are above the ground, and there are not so many of them. It should be noted that compl ete telephone communications with a small town or village can be broken in less than ten minutes. Probably the most important thing here is having a complete understanding of what you are doing, and using the correct tools. Phone lines do carry electric al charges and, without the complete knowledge of what you are doing and without the correct tools, it would be very easy to electrocute yourself. In rural areas, the basic tools should be: rubb~-soled shoe{(sneake}); pliers with rubber grips; large heav ~-duty wire or tin cutters, also with rubber grips; a pair of surgical rubber gloves; a small flashligh{(operate at nig}); and a body strap to allow you free movement of your hands once at the top of the pole. IMPORTANT, before attempting any telephone w ire cutting, get hold of a copy of telephone repairman's manual, and read it. This same operation can be preformed in urban areas, although the process is much more involved. In most urban areas the phone lines run beneath the street level, and they are`usually`) to the phone lines in the sewers, there are also all the hi~-voltage electric lines. If you cut into one of these, I don't care how well insulated you are, you'll fry. An urband saboteur should either be in possession of a detailed map of the phone lin es, available at any municipal library, or carry a small electric line locator, so that he can find the right line to cut. The urban guerrilla, on this sort of mission, should carry all the tools the rural guerrilla would have, except he should exchange the body strap for a rubb~-insulated hack saw, also add a crowbar. The hack saw is for the mtal encasement that surrounds all phone and electric wires in the sewers. Access to the sewers is pretty easy, as most manholes will take you into an amazing com plex of all differe~-sized tunnels, where you can get thoroghly lost, unless you have had the foresight to study a map of the sewers, also available from any municiple library. Know exactly where you are going, know all the obstacles that you may come in contact with, and have several routes of escape planned, in case of an emergency. Needless to say, if you decide to go into the sewers, dress accordingly. It's cold, damp infested with rodents, and dark, and many tunnels are partially full of water. A word of caution about using explosives to sever phone lines: In the sewers, don't. In Paris in 1945, the French resistance decided that to aid the oncoming Allied troops, they would cut all lines of communication from the Nazi headquarters and Berli n. This proved insuccessful, for many reasons, but the important fact was that they did attempt to use explosives in the sewer system. A small charge was placed right on the phone lines, and denoted from a good distance away. The phone line was cut, b ut unknown to the resistance, so was a gas main, right next to lines. The result: phone lines cut, a large number of civilians dead, and a block and a half completely leveled. Not only was the area totally destroyed, it was flooded by the bursting of t he water mains which also shared the sewers with the phone wires. One can use small explosive charges in rural areas, as the lines are above the ground. DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS 304-744-2253