Consumers : High-Tech Gadgets for Real-Life Spies

So you want to be an amateur sleuth or make sure no one is spying on you? James Bond gizmos aren’t just for the movies and television anymore. Now there’s a world of spy gear available to ordinary folk.

There’s high-tech equipment to let you: hear conversations across the room at restaurants or cocktail parties; tape a conversation through a microphone-recorder in your briefcase; X-ray spray a letter to read its contents; or scramble conversations on your home or car phone so nobody else can listen to them.

“Spy” items have become so popular they’re now a multimillion-dollar business that is growing rapidly each year, industry analysts say.

Representatives of Hammacher Schlemmer and The Sharper Image, both of which offer high-tech electronic spy gadgets in their stores and catalogues, say the devices are extremely popular with the public.

“The demand is really there from consumers,” said Susan Sanders of Hammacher Schlemmer’s corporate office in Chicago. “And people are getting pretty sophisticated and demanding about what they want.”

Indeed, many electronics and upscale department stores now feature listening and recording gadgets. The high-tech items are offered nationwide through mail-order catalogues. Some major cities even have “spy shops” carrying the products exclusively.

The items aren’t cheap. An X-ray spray that turns paper translucent for a minute--developed by intelligence agency researchers to detect letter bombs--is relatively affordable at $25 or so; a device that looks like a radio with an earplug but lets you hear conversations across the room costs about $60.

But much of the electronic security equipment goes for bigger bucks. To eavesdrop on distant subjects, for instance, a well-equipped snoop would have to cough up $160 to $180 for a set of binoculars with a microphone wand; a fold-up umbrella that also happens to be a listening device costs about $300. A stethoscope that lets you hear through a wall runs about $400, while highly sensitive night-vision surveillance scopes and cameras can sell for $10,000 to $40,000.

Not all these items are available to the public and not all the devices, particularly those used to tap telephones, come without legal strings; it is, for example, illegal under federal law to bug someone else’s phone.

So just who buys and uses all this stuff?

Although sales of spy products are increasing among private individuals, most of the most expensive, sophisticated security equipment still is used by businesses, security firms or celebrities.

CCS Communication Control Inc.--a Port Chester, N.Y., firm with offices and stores in five U.S. cities, and in London, Paris, and Montreal--manufactures and sells more than 150 products. CCS, which even builds bulletproof limousines, also runs a consulting service to advise clients what they need to protect home or office.

“Corporate espionage is getting bigger every day,” said Bruce Wood, salesman and security consultant for CCS Beverly Hills branch.

Any consumer can get on the company’s catalogue mailing list, but not all CCS items are available to everyone. “Some of these products are available to the general public, but not bugs, transmitters or phone taps,” Wood said. “We’ll sell the public bug detectors, bulletproof vests or the AL-22, a giant flashbulb that blinds an attacker for 10 minutes.”

Glamour, Fun, Excitement

From Colorado, LifeForce Technologies--a firm whose executives also run the Executive Security Institute, a private, Aspen-based school to train private investigators and bodyguards--has for 18 months offered a catalogue of high-tech, electronic spy gear emphasizing its “glamour, fun and excitement,” said spokeswoman Martha Braunig.

Among LifeForce’s glitzier items: the Sea Urchin, a one-man submarine ($40,000); Dark Invader, a night surveillance camcorder device with an infra-red illuminator ($4,320); a recording briefcase with a 5-hour recorder ($1,295): the Powershred, a portable document shredder ($749).

LifeForce’s customer surveys show that its buyers are well-educated, relatively affluent, ages 25-45 and 80% men. As customers, they fall into three categories.

“There are private individuals who would like to know more about how to take care of themselves, individuals who want to take responsibility for themselves,” Braunig said.

Then there are customers who buy the products primarily for fun. “They treat them like toys, executive toys that are a ton of fun,” she said.

The Real Professionals

And finally, there are private investigators or others in the surveillance business.

Bob Burton, a Santa Barbara private investigator who specializes in visual and audio surveillance, has his own theories why spy equipment has become so popular, besides its simple, pleasurable appeal: “I think we’re seeing a more sophisticated consumer who is interested in protecting himself. We’re entering a new era of self-help law enforcement. People feel the government can’t help us, institutions can’t, so it’s up to us to help ourselves.”

Spy gadgets do seem to fill a need for those who feel they need more security, said Dr. Ed Stainbrook, USC professor emeritus of psychiatry and human behavioral sciences, who observed, “From the atmosphere of the general world situation today, there is more increased individual isolation, increased anxiety and uncertainty that makes a person want to protect himself.”

The gadgets also offer “excitement,” he said. “To some people, it’s adult play and acting out a fantasy.”

Oh, The Temptation

But those interested in spy products are not “all these Peeping Toms,” insisted Norman Buitta, owner of Quark Electronics in New York City, which opened its “Spy Shoppe” three months ago. “Not everyone out there is spying on his neighbors. Most of the people are buying counter-surveillance devices, rather than surveillance ones. A lot of the things we sell are for protection.”

He did admit that some people are tempted to eavesdrop if the opportunity presents itself.

An advertising executive, for example, came into his store and saw the umbrella listening device, which “looks like one of those Tote umbrellas.” The man told Buitta that he regretted he didn’t have one.

“He said he was out at breakfast the other morning and saw a guy from another firm discussing business with a new account,” Buitta recalled. “He said if he had had the umbrella and only used it once, it would have been worth it.”