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Spying: How to Track the CIA

Aviation nuts with cameras and Internet connections have become a threat to cover stories established by the CIA to mask its undercover operations and personnel overseas. U.S. intel sources complain that "plane spotters"--hobbyists who photograph airplanes landing or departing at local airports and post the pix on the Internet--made it possible for CIA critics recently to assemble details of a clandestine transport system the agency set up to secretly move cargo and people, including terror suspects, around the world.

Google searches reveal that plane spotters Web-posted numerous photos of two private aircraft registered to obscure companies suspected of CIA connections. Some of the pictures were taken at airports in foreign countries where CIA activities could be controversial. When one of the planes last year went through a change of tail number and ownership--a suspicious company in suburban Boston apparently transferred the plane to a similar company in Reno, Nevada--Internet searches of aviation and public-records databases disclosed details of the plane's new owners and registration number. One critical database, accessible via Google, was a central aircraft registry maintained by the government's own Federal Aviation Administration. A U.S. intel source acknowledges that the instant availability of such data and photos on the Internet is not helpful "if your object is clandestinity." (To see how it works, check the Web for info on a business jet carrying the Liechtenstein tail number HB-IES. The search should turn up pictures of that plane landing at a European airport, as well as public records and news stories describing how the plane, registered to a company called Aviatrans, once belonged to Saddam Hussein.)

Intel sources say the CIA's own lawyers years ago decreed that under U.S. law the agency must register its aircraft--including their tail numbers and the front companies that own them--with public authorities like the FAA, even though this could provide clues to clandestine activity. Agency officials and lawyers have discussed the possibility of changing U.S. laws and regulations to make it easier for the agency to hide its activities. That may be difficult, so for now, plane spotters can keep their eyes on the CIA.