25-11-2008, 04:34 PM
Queen's Teapot Bugged...
Those damnable Ruskies, don't they know that eavesdropping on our royalty is bad manners? And worse, is likely to result in instant slumber?
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News...1415160963
An electric teapot given to the Queen as a present by Russia has reportedly been removed from Balmoral as a possible security threat.
The suspicious samovar was apparently sitting in a room at Balmoral
The samovar was identified as a potential bugging device following a recent sweep by the security services.
The ornate red and yellow urn was presented to the Queen by a Russian aerobatics team about 20 years ago, at the tail end of the Soviet era.
It reportedly became a favourite of the Queen Mother, who put it in a corner of a room in the Aberdeenshire estate and apparently showed it off to visitors.
Security services apparently suspected that the complicated eastern European wiring could have concealed a listening device.
If true, the teapot could have listened in to the Queen's conversations with prime ministers, world leaders and members of her family.
One retainer told the Daily Express: "The samovar was always a bit of an enigma. No one could work out what the Russians thought we were going to do with it.
"The wiring looked as if it came from a Second World War tank and it was not exactly pretty.
A samovar
"No one ever considered it a security risk until a recent sweep by these spooks with their electronic devices. They swept everywhere imaginable, public and private rooms, and the first thing to go was the samovar."
During the Cold War, Western countries and their Eastern Bloc enemies went to great lengths to bug each other and to uncover each other's listening devices.
In his controversial 1987 book Spycatcher, former MI5 assistant director Peter Wright described his part in bugging the embassies of Britain's foes - such as the Soviet Union and Egypt - and allies, including France.
One plan devised by MI5 apparently involved offering the Soviet ambassador to London the gift of a paperweight - which would secretly act as a radio transmitter.
The paperweight would have been a small model of the Kremlin as spooks thought the ambassador would be more likely to put it on his desk if it was considered ideologically sound and also reminded him of home.
Tony Blair and George Bush
Meanwhile, a former US Navy intelligence officer has claimed that America snooped on the private life of former prime minister Tony Blair.
David Murfee Faulk told an ABC News investigation that Mr Blair - President George Bush's chief ally in the so-called War on Terror - was given the codename Anchory and that his private telephone calls were monitored and recorded and that a file on him was compiled by the US National Security Agency.
There is an unwritten rule that the UK and US do not collect information on each other. A spokesman for Mr Blair declined to comment.
Those damnable Ruskies, don't they know that eavesdropping on our royalty is bad manners? And worse, is likely to result in instant slumber?
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News...1415160963
An electric teapot given to the Queen as a present by Russia has reportedly been removed from Balmoral as a possible security threat.
The suspicious samovar was apparently sitting in a room at Balmoral
The samovar was identified as a potential bugging device following a recent sweep by the security services.
The ornate red and yellow urn was presented to the Queen by a Russian aerobatics team about 20 years ago, at the tail end of the Soviet era.
It reportedly became a favourite of the Queen Mother, who put it in a corner of a room in the Aberdeenshire estate and apparently showed it off to visitors.
Security services apparently suspected that the complicated eastern European wiring could have concealed a listening device.
If true, the teapot could have listened in to the Queen's conversations with prime ministers, world leaders and members of her family.
One retainer told the Daily Express: "The samovar was always a bit of an enigma. No one could work out what the Russians thought we were going to do with it.
"The wiring looked as if it came from a Second World War tank and it was not exactly pretty.
A samovar
"No one ever considered it a security risk until a recent sweep by these spooks with their electronic devices. They swept everywhere imaginable, public and private rooms, and the first thing to go was the samovar."
During the Cold War, Western countries and their Eastern Bloc enemies went to great lengths to bug each other and to uncover each other's listening devices.
In his controversial 1987 book Spycatcher, former MI5 assistant director Peter Wright described his part in bugging the embassies of Britain's foes - such as the Soviet Union and Egypt - and allies, including France.
One plan devised by MI5 apparently involved offering the Soviet ambassador to London the gift of a paperweight - which would secretly act as a radio transmitter.
The paperweight would have been a small model of the Kremlin as spooks thought the ambassador would be more likely to put it on his desk if it was considered ideologically sound and also reminded him of home.
Tony Blair and George Bush
Meanwhile, a former US Navy intelligence officer has claimed that America snooped on the private life of former prime minister Tony Blair.
David Murfee Faulk told an ABC News investigation that Mr Blair - President George Bush's chief ally in the so-called War on Terror - was given the codename Anchory and that his private telephone calls were monitored and recorded and that a file on him was compiled by the US National Security Agency.
There is an unwritten rule that the UK and US do not collect information on each other. A spokesman for Mr Blair declined to comment.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14
