Whatever are those crafty CIA boys up to?

While wandering the web and wondering what our government intelligence agencies have been up to, I ran across this:

In a project known as “Acoustic Kitty” the Directorate of Science and Technology sought to train a surgically altered cat, wired with transmitting and control devices, to become a mobile, eavesdropping platform. In its first test, the cat was run over by a taxi. According to Victor Marchetti:

they slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that. Finally, they’re ready. They took it out to a park bench and said “Listen to those two guys. Don’t listen to anything else – not the birds, no cat or dog – just those two guys!” ... They put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over. There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead!3

This heavily redacted memo appears to express the view that cats can be altered and trained to perform certain tasks. At the same time, it notes that “the environment and security factors in using this technique in a real foreign situation force us to conclude that, for our [intelligence] purposes, it would not be practical.”

www.avhub.net...

I laughed so hard when I read this that I about fell off my chair!

It makes me wonder what our wonder boys are up to now.

Maybe this?

www.intercorr.com...

Or this?

www.conceptlab.com...

I am pretty sure that is bogus information.

Not true! It's also available on this web page along with a bunch of other CIA/NSA docs obtained under the freedom of information act.

According to the web site:

The National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions in one non governmental, non-profit institution. The Archive is simultaneously a research institute on international affairs, a library and archive of declassified U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information through the FOIA, and an indexer and publisher of the documents in books, microfiche, and electronic formats. The Archive's approximately $2.3 million yearly budget comes from publication revenues and from private philanthropists such as the Carnegie Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Ford Foundation. As a matter of policy, the Archive receives no government funding.

You can view their board of directors here.

OMG!

That's why my beautiful little black kitty insisted I adopt it!!!

She sat out on a limb outside my window for a week straight mewing at me! She also climbed a very high canopy and sat outside my office window, demanding we let her in!

And I just thought it was the strange affinity my pit bull has for her!

(She actually is my dog's cat.

I'll have to put BELLA out before I ..