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Rossiya via AFP - Getty Images
A combination of video grabs from footage broadcast by Russian state-run television in 2006 allegedly shows a man, said to be a British spy, in a park outside Moscow collecting a fake rock being used as a high-tech version of the spy's traditional letter-box or dead drop in which agents can anonymously deliver or retrieve information.
RTR via Reuters
Russian television said there was a transmitter inside the fake rock.
In an embarrassing episode for the British security services, Tony Blair's former chief of staff has admitted that the U.K. used a fake rock to spy on Russia. Reuters reports:
In a television program aired on Russian state television in 2006, Russia's FSB security service accused Britain of using the gadget for top secret communications in Moscow, but London did not admit to the charge at the time.
Now Jonathan Powell, who was chief of staff to then Prime Minister Tony Blair, has confirmed the Russians were correct.
"They had us bang to rights," Powell says in a BBC documentary to be aired on Thursday.
"There's not much you can say. You can't really call up and say 'terribly sorry about that and it won't happen again'," Powell says. Read the full story.
RTR via Reuters
Russian television showed an X-ray of what they said was a transmitter in the rock.
Tony Blair's former chief of staff admits in a BBC documentary that Britain used a rock with communications equipment inside to spy on Russia. Msnbc.com's Alex Witt reports.
Leave a Comment:
The British response is a bit odd. To so openly "admit" to it has to point to a larger intent. The British have never admitted to spying anywhere. Why now and why over such an odd item?
Not for long... check the picture... there was snow everywhere and nothing on the rock. The stupid spy forgot that little detail "Cover and camoflage the transmitter with the surrounding environment" and I bet you that is what gave it away. He did not read the instruction. He must have been a man spy. Sorry guys, I know we men don't like to read instructions. But this must have been a stupid move.
I bought the same thing at Sam's Club for my patio, only mine had a speaker in it.
Boy those Russians are really on the ball
Just a limey getting "stoned" on "quartz" of vodka and listening to rock radio
Wasn't this already an episode of "Covert Affairs"?
What a wonderful job by MSNBC reporting decades old trivia as news.
Keep the sheep occupied whilst the coyotes raid the flock
You can't have doom and gloom all the time unless you LIKE that sort of reporting. Besides, I guess it wasn't official until Blair admitted to it. Kind of like what's old is now made new again.
In the spy world this would be top rated comedy. I do know when Germany was still divided by a wall that the guards would write messages on rocks and toss them back and forth over the fence (at guard points) during the night. But they used REAL rocks. :-))
hmmmmmmm
Looks like the Russians really got their rocks off. It seems like the Brits were too stoned to care. Makes the Russians appear a lot boulder, doesn't it?
Jolly good show Brits
I can see Russia now... gathering up all suspect rocks for interrogation. Russian interrogator: "We have ways of making you talk, rock! We know who you are and who you've been working with! Just tell us what we want to know, and we may let you return to your quarry." Rock: "Then you shall remain igneous, because I am keeping my mouth rock-shut!...Metamorphically speaking."
I always admired the CIA and Xerox back in the 60's for copying Cuban documents and retrieving them when Xerox techs tuned up the machines. Brilliant work.
The handy trick Rock...It's a Rock, it's a camera, it's a telephone....it's a weapon.....but that's not all, it makes mounds of french fries, and Cole slaw....if you order in the next 10 minutes you get not one.. but you get two of these all purpose Deluxe Versi Rocks so order now!
I'll tell you a secret Russia: I attended St. Peter's Church on Main Street in Worcester Massachusetts and the priest called: "the wedding of the century" that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. When the wedding of the century was suppose to be "The Professor aka: "Two Strong Boy" to Caroline Kennedy. I feigned out their demise in short order, using a bridge abuttment on Route 290 and Alpha and Omega written there, and a painting of a bridge in France by Vincent Van Gogh and got the job done. Now they call the wedding of the brideegroom in The Bible or "wedding of century" that of Prince William and Duchess Kate. Between Vincent Van Gogh's ear or heir and Prince William's wedding of the bridegroom, Christ has no reward in heaven. St. Peter's, San Pedro's and for Diane Bade (a Russian) San Bedo's, left with a curse on St. Peter or Diabetes. Purple toes, hung upside down on a cross, to have the blood of a glutton, run back to head. For the murder of Diane Bade, and the Papal Bull on Vincent Van Gogh... St. Bedo was sifted like wheat. Ethnic cleansing Russia. Remember that term for genocide.
Watch for the movie to this. Starring Mike Meyers as Austin Powers in "Rock On Dude" And Maxwell Smart may make a cameo using his shoe phone. This could be the best spy movie ever!
This story rocks.
Finally..., the Rock has come back...
no sweat! the brits still have the paper and scissors.....
C.P. News update:
Americans decide to remain sheeple!
President and top runners wipe their ass with Constitution in favor of Corporate puppet government today buying into media ran propaganda. No more will people in any nation be safe from Americas corporate greed, and unwanted military intervention.America spits into the face of their neighbors to the north killing the Keystone pipeline project while ramping up support for continued operations in Libya and future operations in Syria and Iran to support BP efforts to seize all oil production in middle east.
One Communist leader was quoted as saying, "I knew our efforts of infiltration would pay off but I didnt expect it to take 60+ years. People in general want to be lead it just takes longer to build enough trust to lead them off the cliff" He said with a chuckle.
That is okay, we cannot vote for Obama and punish him. He caused millions of jobs.
His name is Cephas. It means stone. Gravestone. What's written on the gravestone? Bedo!
My name in Catholicism is: David Michael John... now name the Kennedy's of my generation that died in that order: David. Michael. John. I get even!
That is really stupid. What if someone had just been strolling around the park and tripped over it. Then someone would had already been in trouble. Because if I would had tripped over it, I would had picked it up and chunked over somewhere else out of the way.
Good show! Jolly good show!
Dat Spyrock iz not OUR SPYROCK! :O
Wouldn't it be easier to just hand the material to somebody? I mean, two people sureptitiously opening a "rock" in a park looks more suspicious than two people running in to each other in a crowd and saying, "Hey, how are ya? Long time Boris, yada yada......" (or the Russian equivalent of "yada yada".... "yadootski yadootski"?)