INDEX	October 25, 2021
Spies: don't they make you sick!
Recently the BBC has been reporting the existence of Havana syndrome illness, with officials (many of whom were spooks) who worked at US embassies, coming down with the illness in Colombia, Berlin, Vienna and India. The symptoms include a ringing in the ears, dizziness and fatigue. I was complaining about this and listed the same symptoms in 2008 when I lived at 519 Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, London. At the time I thought it was the proliferation of radio or microwave transmitters in the area. Having read Peter Wright's book Spycatcher, I now believe that I was the victim of the intense radio beams he describes as being used by MI5 to obtain information and impact electrical equipment, without actually entering a premises. So why wouldn't MI5 simply bug my flat? They could easily have burgled it or got one of their spooks to pose as a friend and visit me and then plant some device. The reason is the strange code of ethics or etiquette these people abide by. They can frame Colin Wallace for a murder he did not commit. That's within the rules, or at least the rules do not explicitly forbid it. But they can not burgle a premises to bug it because the rules state they must get the approval of the Home Secretary. In 2008, or actually 2006 when I first noticed I was getting ill, the Home Secretary was a member of the Labour Party and it would have been a tough ask to get him to bug the home of a former prominent Labour councillor (I had chaired Waltham Forest Council's Planning Committee, among other things). The Home Secretary might have approved it but what could MI5 have said? The case made against me would have been no more than tittle tattle and innuendo. I am not a criminal or a terrorist. Radio beam technology sounds as if it is something out of science fiction. But in reality it has been around for a good deal more than half a century. This is because it is difficult to see a commercial use for intense radio beams that can turn an ornament into a radio transmitter. And it is especially true when you take into account the possibility of making everyone in the room sick. See report about Havana syndrome. In addition to creating bugs from ornaments, the intense radio beams can also operate or cause to malfunction, electrical equipment. Wright talks about a phone that was made to activate even though it had no aerial or ability to handle radio signals. Some readers who have never read Wright's book Spycatcher will argue this is all nonsense radio signals can not make you ill and have no impact on the body. Not according to Dr Hans Peter Hutter of the Medical University of Vienna who carried out a small study of mobile phone users a decade ago. This study found tinnitus was more likely in those using mobile phones for at least ten minutes a day. The British Tinnitus Association said a link was unproven. So maybe Havana syndrome is just an illusion. Well maybe! The spooks live in a world of smoke and mirrors, after all.
October 25, 2021°Jonathan Brind		INDEX