Home Spy Words, Terms and Codes

Here is a reference resource for all those spy codes and covert talk.

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• SA – FBI special agent.
• SAFEHOUSE – a dwelling place or hideout unknown to the adversary.
• SANITIZE - to delete specific material or revise a report or other document to prevent the identification of intelligence sources and collection methods.
  SAPO – Sweden's security service.
• SASHA KVAP – Russian mole inside Hitler's bunker during the final months of World War II. Subsequently poisoned by the KGB in 1955.
• SAVAK – one of Iraq's security services.
  SCIF – acronym for Secured Compartmentalized Information Facility (in Fort Gillem, GA, USA) where Clipper is housed (rumored to have already been penetrated by agents of China's intelligence agencies).
• SEMTEX – a military explosive suitable for sabotage and terrorist operations.
• SECRET CLASSIFICATIONS – Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, and (SCI) Special Compartmentalized Information.
• SERE – an acronym for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape.
• SERVICING – the act of removing material from a dead drop.
• SET UP – to begin to conduct surveillance on a target.
• SEVENTY-ONE YARDS – according to FBI statistics, this is the distance at which a typical police sniper will get you. Although the SR60 .308 sniper rifle used by most police departments is designed for distances up to 600 yards, most police snipers do not fire at suspects beyond 400 yards. (Of course, at any distance an execution is still an execution.)
• SHOE - False passport of VISA
• SHIN BETH – Israel's security service (also called GSS).
• SHINING PATH – an underground group in Peru.
• SMERSH – KGB assassination group. Officially disbanded ;) The name derives from the Russian phrase "death to spies".
• SIDE – Argentina's security service.
• SIGINT – signals intelligence (interception of electronic communications)
• SINN FEIN – the political arm (party) of the IRA.
• SIS – one of Britain's intelligence agencies, the secret intelligence service.
• SIT REP – situation report.
• SIX – slang for a police officer, police cruiser, or a police patrol. Used as a warning in the criminal community.
• SLEEPER AGENT – an inactive deep-cover agent.
• SLUZBA BEZPIECZENSTWA – Poland's security service, also called the SB.
• SOFT TARGET – an easy surveillance target, untrained and not looking for surveillance.
• SOG – an acronym for Special Operations Group, FBI agents who conduct surveillance. Incontrast, SSG is composed of non-agents. See also SSG.
• SOS – dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot.
• SPECIAL BRANCH – the security branch of the British police.
• SPLASHED – describes a bodyguard whose client has been assassinated. Also see WET AFFAIR.
• SPOOK – a spy.
• SPY – any member of an intelligence agency, security service, police agency, resistance movement, guerrilla group, or other organization engaged in covert intelligence-gathering activities.
• SRI – Romania's security service (rumored to be made up of former members of Ceausescu's secret police).
• SSG – an acronym for Surveillance Specialist Group, which is what the FBI calls a surveillance team. See also INVESTIGATIVE SPECIALIST. See also SOG.
• SSS – Georgia's security service.
• STATION - post where espionage is conducted
• StB – Czechoslovakia's security service, the Statni Tajna Bezpecnost.
• STINGBALL – a flashbang grenade used by SWAT teams to disperse crowds and disorient barricaded suspects. Throws off rubber fragments when detonated. It is standard police procedure to cover up the deaths of suspects inadvertently killed by stingballs.
• STREET AGENT – an FBI agent whose work takes him to various locations. Also see BRICK AGENT.
• SVR – one of Russia's intelligence agencies, the Slnzhba Vneshnei Razvedaki.
• SWALLOW - a female agent employed to seduce people for intelligence purposes.
• SWARMING – overfilling a location with surveillance operatives. Often used in psy ops as a means for controlling the target's environment.
• SYNTHETIC HEMOGLOBIN – a component used in carbon monoxoide detector alarms. The radiation weapons recently developed and deployed by DARPA will set off these alarms.

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