If CIA cared that much they'd tell their people not drive to work with their phones in the car. Google/Apple, telecom, and insurance companies know who nearly every employee is.
They did when I worked there (briefly, 15 years ago).
They, at the time, told people to take the batteries out of their phones before they got close to HQ. They said even back then that they had evidence of foreign services utilizing cellphone towers with malicious tracking devices. I guess cell phone towers are basically public so any company, or shell company, is allowed access. Anyway, you were supposed to take the battery out because that just made your cellphone "disappear" as if it lost signal, ran out of battery, etc. If you turned off your phone it sends a "shutting down" signal which they thought was more suspicious.
I have no idea how they manage things now that cellphones rarely have removable batteries. No phones were allowed to come into the building, you had to leave them in your car. People who needed to be on call had pagers--in the 2010s~!
Another good one was being able to figure out who was CIA or military based on their strava runs in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
That's in conflict with the information I have from some time later, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are so incompetent they don't even have a consistent sane policy on phones (put them in a faraday bag at home, not in the parking lot after listing to podcast on the way). Also every modern car has a cell phone that should be disabled.
It wouldn't surprise me at all. Things have to have changed since I was there. Additionally, I was not deeply under cover. The really deeply under cover people can spend a career working for CIA and literally never once come to HQ. I imagine they gv\ave the DO agents different rules.
They did when I worked there (briefly, 15 years ago).
They, at the time, told people to take the batteries out of their phones before they got close to HQ. They said even back then that they had evidence of foreign services utilizing cellphone towers with malicious tracking devices. I guess cell phone towers are basically public so any company, or shell company, is allowed access. Anyway, you were supposed to take the battery out because that just made your cellphone "disappear" as if it lost signal, ran out of battery, etc. If you turned off your phone it sends a "shutting down" signal which they thought was more suspicious.
I have no idea how they manage things now that cellphones rarely have removable batteries. No phones were allowed to come into the building, you had to leave them in your car. People who needed to be on call had pagers--in the 2010s~!
Another good one was being able to figure out who was CIA or military based on their strava runs in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
That's in conflict with the information I have from some time later, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are so incompetent they don't even have a consistent sane policy on phones (put them in a faraday bag at home, not in the parking lot after listing to podcast on the way). Also every modern car has a cell phone that should be disabled.
It wouldn't surprise me at all. Things have to have changed since I was there. Additionally, I was not deeply under cover. The really deeply under cover people can spend a career working for CIA and literally never once come to HQ. I imagine they gv\ave the DO agents different rules.