Friday, July 28, 2017

The CIA Once Wanted To Train Cats To Be Spies



Olivia B. Waxman, Time: That Time the CIA Tried to Train Cats to Be Spies

Wednesday's 70th anniversary of President Harry S. Truman signing the National Security Act of 1947 — which created the CIA and much of today's national security-related bureaucracy — arrives at a time of heightened tension in the national security world, and will surely be an occasion to reflect on some of the Central Intelligence Agency's most notable moments. But its history has also included moments that are a little less than illustrious — such as that time the agency investigated whether it would work to use cats to eavesdrop on private meetings.

In the mid-1960s, the CIA did try to see if that would work, in a short-lived experiment nicknamed "Acoustic Kitty."

The idea to bug cats is believed to have come from an attempt to listen in on an unidentified head of state who happened to be located in an area with a lot of feral cats. CIA operatives noticed that the felines tended to wander in and out of the premises without catching the attention of any guards.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: Aside from the litter box .... how do you train a cat? (I am a dog person).

3 comments:

jon said...

You can not train a cat.. The cat will train you.

Bob Huntley said...

My two year old tabby will sit on verbal or a finger command, shake my hand (well he just puts his paw in my hand) and then high fives me to get his morning treat.

Sometimes on the high five I will move my hand up so he misses it and just hits my wrist, but tries again when I say "in my hand". At that point he'll put his other paw behind my hand in an effort to keep me from moving it.

It took him a while, like two tries, but I sometimes learn quickly.

James said...

To train them you have to bring them in first. A little history:
https://youtu.be/Pk7yqlTMvp8