Spies, Snoops, Sneaks and Stalkers

Eleven accused Russian spies were surprised to learn that the FBI was not only listening to their telephone conversations, reading their computer emails and cell phone text messages, recording their secret conversations, but were even recording them walking around the house talking to themselves aloud when they were alone. The Federal 9th Circuit District Court recently ruled that the police can walk onto anyone's driveway and place tracking devices on their cars without a warrant and without the person knowing it. Apparently, sneaking onto a private person's property at three in the morning isn't even considered trespassing.

City police officers and federal agents aren't the only people who know how to eavesdrop on people or place GPS trackers on their cars. The huge proliferation of wiretaps, bugging devices, computer key loggers, and miniature video cameras in the past thirty years as a result of advances in micro-technology has resulted in spying and eavesdropping on a scale that has never before existed.  Spying on employees, business rivals, spouses and even strangers has become common place.  Computers are compromised, telephones are tapped and rooms are bugged with sophisticated equipment that turns on and off in response to voices or movement. Working, shopping and living spaces are secretly monitored, cars are tracked and even seemingly private areas are under surveillance by government, law enforcement, corporations, private security and a slew of less savory information gatherers. Surveillance devices that used to cost thousands of dollars are on sale in stores and on the internet for fifty dollars and sometimes less and they work.  Anyone can purchase the equipment and plant it wherever they please. An amateur can plant a bug, but it takes an expert to find it.

Although many private investigators advertise that they perform counter-surveillance sweeps, most can’t. In fact, few of them have the training or the proper equipment to detect bugs and taps. They either hire a qualified technician to do it for them and add a huge middleman cost to the bill or they use cheap ineffectual equipment that can’t distinguish between an actual bug and a radio station and pretend to do the sweep themselves. To end such practices, qualified counter-surveillance technicians have organized certification procedures.  In Texas, certified counter-surveillance technicians can be found at www.TSCMTech.net  Others should not be trusted.

Louis L. Akin had his first experience of a TSCM sweep when he assisted in performing a sweep to protect a witness in the infamous 3-Mile Island Nuclear Reactor case in 1980. He began his formal countermeasures training by completing basic and advanced TSCM courses at Texas A&M School of Engineering Extension Center in 1987. He continued training at the Jarvis International Intelligence Academy, Tulsa 1988 and has continually updated his training having attended his last 40-hour training course at REI in 2008. He first testified as an expert on technical surveillance countermeasures the 348th District Court in Tarrant County, Texas in January 1991. Mr. Akin has accumulated twenty-two years of experience performing sweeps at levels 3 and 4.

In March, 2007, for discovering a wiretap installed on the telephone line beneath the home of an Austin woman, Louis Akin, was awarded the Meritorious Service Award for Investigative Excellence, 2007, by the Texas Association of Licensed Investigators . The discovery led to the arrest and conviction of a 55-year old Austin contractor who had stalked, harassed, and psychologically tortured ex-girlfriends over the past 20-years. On evidence Akin developed, the contractor was convicted of wiretapping and burglary and sentenced to five years in prison. Mr. Akin has written articles on TSCM for the American College of Forensic Examiners, the National Association of Criminal Defense Investigators, The Texas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and other magazines including the Texas Investigator.