Book Review - Killer Elite by Michael Smith

Book: Killer Elite by Michael Smith (St. Martins Press, NY: 2007).

Overview: Killer Elite purports to set out the history of "the Activity," an Army intelligence unit that was created in the aftermath of the failed attempt in April 1980 to rescue the American hostages being held in Iran. The purpose of the unit was to provide operational intelligence, primarily for use in planning and carrying out special operations missions. The book follows "the Activity" from its creation in the early 1980's, up through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan (at least as of the time it was written).

Impression: This could have been an interesting book, but, alas, failed in most measures. This is the type of book that I refer to as a "meta-history." It is compendium of abstracted details, like a history text book, almost completely lacking any individual or specific details concerning the operations carried out by the unit. This is the difference between, for example, simply stating that "the next day, we overran a German bunker," versus explaining the details of the battle. The book is entitled "the inside story of America's most secret special operations team." They don't need to worry--their secrets are still safe.

Notable Points: For a person preparing for disaster or social upheaval, the most interesting (and, in reality, only interesting) portion of the book pertained to the use of the Activity in Columbia starting in 1989 to gather intelligence on Pablo Escobar and his drug cartel. In particular, it is interesting to note how they compromised the cartel's cell phone communications. The author writes:

"The Activity's well-equipped King Air intercept 'platform' had little problems [sic] getting 'ears on target.' A typical cell phone system is made up of a number of based states controlled by a mobile telephone switching office or MTSO. When a cell phone is turned on, its transceiver automatically starts searching for the base station with the strongest signal, like a baby animal bleating for its mother. Once it has established contact with the base station it sets up a control link, along which it transmits information about its identity so the network knows where it is. This allows incoming calls to be directed to the new 'mother' base station. The most effective way of monitoring the cell phone transmission is to use a process known as 'meaconing,' in which the intercept system takes control of the cell phone. It first jams the control link, forcing the cell phone to start scanning the available frequencies for another base station. It then sets up a new counterfeit base station with a much stronger signal, which attracts the target cell phone. All outgoing and incoming calls are not redirected through the counterfeit base station.

"Escobar and his colleagues believed they were immune to interception because even if their cell phone conversations were monitored, the phone network was encrypting the transmission in a way that made it impossible to understand them. But the intercept systems used by the military do not need to decrypt the transmissions. On a typical cell phone network, it is the base station that controls the encryption. So the intercept operator's counterfeit base section [sic] simply denies encryption, allowing the operator to listen into the calls 'in clear' without either party knowing what is going on." (p. 160).

The book also explains that "[t]hey could also use Escobar's cell phone as a bug even when it was not being used to make a call. The control link with the base station is on a completely different frequency to that used to transmit the actual calls and, if the cell phone is switched on, the intercept operator can listen in to what the owner or anyone else in the near vicinity of the cell phone is saying. The Activity's equipment also allowed them to locate the target even when he or she believed they had switched off their cell phone. Using the control link, the intercept operator could program the telephone to ensure that if it had been switched off, it came on at precisely the time the Activity needed to be able to locate it...." (p. 161). The author then goes on to briefly explain how the Activity would analyze the cell phone traffic to get an idea of the organizational structure of the cartel. (see p. 162).

One obvious point is that this describes capabilities that they were using 20 years ago! Today, with the full panoply of data on or transmitted by a cell phone (including GPS data), the capabilities to use cell phones to spy on citizens is much greater than what is described in the book.