ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Camerasoperator of the camera plays a lesser role than the technologybehind its operation, and that of the craft that keeps italoft many thousands of feet or miles above Earth’s surface.Surveillance cameras in daily life. Similarly, with closerangesurveillance and security cameras that operate automatically,the human operator is of little significance.Still, there is a great deal of immediacy and intimatecontact between camera and subject—especially becausethe unwitting subject seldom knows the degree to whichhe or she is under surveillance. In modern times, Americanshave become accustomed to ordinary security camerasin stores and other businesses, particularly thosewhose contents have high monetary value. According tothe Security Industry Association, by 2003, there weresome two-million closed-circuit television systems in operation,most of them operated by private businesses forsecurity purposes, in the United States. CCS International,a security company, estimated that the average person inManhattan was photographed 73 to 75 times a day. Oftenthis happened when the individual was not aware of thesurveillance, even when the camera itself was in plainview. That camera might well be a dummy, with the realcamera photographing an individual’s activities from anotherangle.Although civil libertarians protested this proliferationof security cameras, they are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. J. P. Freeman, a firm that performs marketingresearch for the security industry, estimated in 2002 thatthe market for digital video surveillance equipment wasgrowing at the rate of fifteen percent per year, particularlynoticeable gains during the early twenty-first century recession.Additionally, in the heightened climate of awarenessthat followed the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001, Americans were less likely than ever to react topotential violations of privacy.In communist Eastern Europe. If surveillance cameras areubiquitous in a democratic nation such as the UnitedStates, they are pervasive in closed societies—assumingthat the nation possesses the financial means to watch itscitizens with electronic eyes. Certainly this was true in EastGermany, by far the most prosperous nation in the historyof communism, where per-capita incomes in the 1980sran higher than those of non-communist Greece. The EastGerman Stasi (short for das Ministerium für Staatssicherheitor Ministry of State Security) frequently monitored patronsof public lodgings through the use of a Czech-madesurveillance camera with a German T1–340 lens. Made tofit into a special cylinder built into the hotel wall, thecamera could be operated using a remote shutter release.This piece of equipment, used to spy on hotel patrons, wasa variety of the German robot camera developed prior toWorld War II.Surveillance Cameras in EspionageFirst used by the Nazis in 1934, the robot could snapmultiple exposures without requiring manual winding.Originally used by the German air force to rapidly photographthe destruction of targets, it later became a favoriteof Nazi intelligence services. The designs of the Nazi eraculminated in the Star 50, which could snap 50 exposuresin rapid succession. After the war, intelligence agents oneither side of the Iron Curtain used robot cameras.Made to be concealed and, if necessary, operatedfrom a remote location, the robot was ideal for surveillance.Specific varieties of Star 50 were designed to behidden in handbags, while the robot Star II was flat enoughto fit in a special belt concealed by a trench coat. A falsecoat button covered the camera lens, and the manufacturersprovided an entire matching set of buttons so that theuser could replace those already on the trench coat if theydid not match the false one. The robot Star II could also fitneatly into a briefcase.The Soviet KGB developed their own variation on therobot, the F21, in 1948. Small—about the size of a hotelsoap bar—and quiet, the F21 was ideal for concealment.At various times, Soviet designers adapted the F21 to hideit in belt buckles, jackets, umbrellas, and even cameracases. In the latter instance, the spy, posing as a tourist,would carry the camera case open and slung around theneck. The visible camera was a dummy; mounted on theside of the case was an F21 that took pictures at a 90-degree angle to the lens of the dummy camera.Some other significant surveillance models in thehistory of Cold War espionage include the British Mark 3automatic camera. Developed in the 1950s and still in useduring the 1990s, the Mark 3 had a chamber so large itcould hold enough film for 250 35mm exposures. Sometimesintelligence operatives needed moving pictures ratherthan stills, and for this, KGB relied on a movie version ofthe F21, developed in the 1960s. The camera was made tobe hidden in a coat, using the false button techniqueapplied with the robot camera.Copy cameras. To copy documents, intelligence servicesrequired special cameras. An ordinary camera could theoreticallybe used, but would have difficulty in obtainingreadable images. A much better option is to use a cameraand accessories specially made for that purpose. A cameramade specifically for copying documents has a highdegree of photographic resolution, and is constructed insuch a way as to be operated with a remote shutter releasein order to avoid shaking the camera. Usually, the equipmentwould also include a stand of some kind that wouldboth keep the camera steady and hold it fixed in placesome distance from the documents being copied. Finally,because copying by an intelligence agent would mostlikely be a clandestine activity, it would be necessary tohouse all this equipment in a package that could easily beconcealed.156 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security