Spy Machines

The intelligence community has always been a leader in cutting-edge technology. Invented, purchased, or even stolen, the intelligence community maintained a large repository of schematics and technical information related not only to their own activities, but tracking the technological capabilities of foreign governments.

In 2000, the CIA installed and maintained an electronic full-text searchable system known as CREST (the CIA Records Search Tool). Since 2017, the CIA has begun releasing declassified documents through CREST online. This online repository contains over 11 million pages of declassified information.

This book contains a detailed look at some of the more technical documents in CREST, including technical details, schematics, photographs, and sketches of technology used by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and foreign governments.

The technology used by the early CIA and other Federal agencies such as the FBI and NSA laid the foundations of much of the technology we use today, including high-speed jet airplanes, encrypted radios, satellite communication, modern photography, and modern computer security.