An article in USA Today reviews the history of spy-dom with an interactive graphic reviewing some devices and techniques from the 1940’s through 2013.  An important point to remember when considering all forms of technology today, is that the advancements have a cumulative effect, especially when it comes to spying. Techniques from the 1700’s, 1800’s, and 1900’s are still valid in 2013. Just because new technology has emerged does not mean that old technology or techniques have disappeared.  We now have Kindles and iPads, Youtube and podcasts, yet books, radio, and TV are still with us and very significant.  With much of today’s spying taking place in the cyber world, it’s important to remember that the old techniques have not gone away. Hidden microphones, transmitters, covert video, even putting your ear up to an air vent to hear voices from another room are still active valid eavesdropping threats and should not be ignored.

Spy shoes to drones: How U.S. surveillance changed

By Ashley M. Williams and Jessica Durando, USA TODAY Network

Spies once used briefcase recorders, shoes and stump bugs to gather information. Now computer programs and drones are surveillance tools.

With decades of James Bond movies, The Americans on TV and countless video games and books, spying has embedded itself deep into our popular culture. What’s more striking is how real life espionage continues to play out in the USA.

Criticism of the National Security Agency is increasing inside the U.S. intelligence community.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden, 30, who was granted asylum in Moscow in August after leaking highly classified government information, wroteTuesday that calls for changes in surveillance programs justify his decision to make the materials public.

In the wake of Snowden’s disclosures, a report showed that the NSA eavesdropped on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone. Other examples of spying this year included the U.S. government ordering Verizon to give the NSA access to daily reports of telephone records of millions of Americans and the FBI director’s acknowledgement that the bureau has used drones in a “very minimal way” for domestic surveillance.

Government surveillance is nothing new. The United States started tracking telegraphic information entering into and exiting the country in 1945. The technology associated with spying, however, has become much more advanced. History shows a steady evolution of the ways governments secretly gather information.

“Spying has gone on throughout history,” says Peter Earnest, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and executive director of the International Spy Museum. “Since globalization, spying has increased because countries want to know what other countries are doing.The discipline of intelligence has already increased a great deal in the post-Cold War world.”

Briefcase recorders in the 1950s led to transmitters hidden in shoes in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, bugs hidden in tree stumps intercepted communication signals. Devices continued to become more compact. In the 1980s, tiny transmitters with microphones were hidden in pens.

The advent of the Internet ushered in the Web bug, which tracked who viewed websites or e-mails and provided the IP address of an e-mail recipient. In 2013, drones and computer programs continue to develop as surveillance tools.

So how does the future look for spying?

“It looks good,” Earnest said.