The Israeli listening devices ban
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The Israeli listening devices ban is John Kiriakou's account of why representatives of Mossad and Shin Bet were not permitted to enter CIA headquarters during his career, and of the workaround the agency adopted instead.

The gifts

Kiriakou says the Israelis had once been allowed inside headquarters, but that every time they came they brought gifts with listening devices embedded inside them. In his telling the agency's response was exasperated rather than dramatic: officers x-rayed the gifts each time, and each time found a device and batteries, until they told the Israelis outright that they were no longer permitted into the building.

Because the liaison relationship itself continued, the agency had to rent space outside headquarters, in Virginia, and that is where the meetings with the Israeli services took place.

Context of the relationship

Kiriakou describes his own dealings with the Israeli government as very difficult, and offers the ban as one item in a longer pattern. He introduces it while recounting his first liaison briefing of Mossad and Shin Bet representatives in Washington, eight weeks into his CIA career, an occasion that produced the "spell your name" briefing.

On the wider balance of the relationship Kiriakou is blunt, saying that over the course of his career, and in what has since been leaked or released to the media, the United States got nothing out of the liaison relationship while the Israelis got everything. He also reports being asked how many Israeli agents might be embedded in American defence contractors or university laboratories, and answering that nobody has any idea, but that it must be hundreds.

The gifts

In a 2026 retelling, John Kiriakou gave the reason for the ban in his boss's words. The Israelis were not permitted in the building "because every time they would come to CIA headquarters, they would bring gifts and the gifts were always laden with listening devices and batteries."

The agency's countermeasure was routine rather than dramatic: "we would x-ray everything, and we would tell them stop trying to bug our conference rooms." The Israeli answer, in Kiriakou's account, was "Oh. Okay. Okay. You caught us. Okay." Eventually the conclusion was reached that "they just can't come in anymore," and liaison moved to a safe house.

It was at one of those safe-house meetings that the "spell your name" briefing took place.

See also

- MOSSAD
- CIA liaison relationships
- The Spell Your Name Briefing
- The Jerusalem Harassment Campaign
