Miami Herald: FBI details methods at Cuban spying trial

Published Tuesday, December 19, 2000, in the Miami Herald

FBI details methods at Cuban spying trial

Somewhere, at an undisclosed location, eight FBI employees are listening to conversations -- not over the phones, but over shortwave radios.

The workers monitor selected ``high-frequency broadcasts'' all over the world and transcribe what they hear for permanent storage. They intercepted at least 350 such messages during the investigation of an alleged Cuban spy ring, an FBI supervisor testified in federal court Monday.

The shortwave communications from Cuba -- all in Morse code -- were ``critical to alerting'' the accused spies of tasks being assigned by their intelligence bosses in Havana, prosecutors claim. The defendants allegedly listened to their radios at predetermined times.

FBI Agent Myron Broadwell brought 44 of the suspect communications with him Monday but did not testify about their contents. He oversees the ``data collection facility'' of the FBI Crime Laboratory's ``investigative technologies branch.'' Broadwell said eight ``operators'' work five days a week transcribing recordings of shortwave broadcasts in Morse code.

Also on Monday, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard granted reporters access to examine and photograph evidence in the case, in which the government accuses five men of spying for the Cuban government. The Herald, El Nuevo Herald and WTVJ-NBC 6 had sought the ruling.