funds to
* pay the engineering whizzes at the Sandia and Los Alamos National
* Laboratories and several other government research facilities to
develop
* ways to defeat "any locking system whether it be mechanical or
electronic,
* or computer supplemented."
[snip]
*
* The FBI's Rapid Prototyping Facility (RPF) is a laboratory and factory
* dedicated to the design and manufacture of "unique miniaturized
devices in
* direct sup****t of various investigative efforts" of the "FBI and other
* members of the U.S. law enforcement community."
*
* Operated jointly by the FBI and the Pentagon's Defense Advanced
Research
* Projects Agency (DARPA, creators of the Internet), the FBI facility
was
* created to allow the bureau "to use computer-aided design, engineering
* and manufacturing of tools and equipment (software and firmware
* respectively) to design, simulate, and fabricate integrated circuits,
* printed circuit boards, electronic components, packages, systems and
* concealments in a quick turnaround cost-effective manner."
*
* Among the facilities advantages are speed "through the use of laser
* restructuring, high-density interconnect, and reverse milling
capability,"
* and a capability "to produce an integrated microphone ('microphone on
a
* chip') in a single design/fabrication process."
*
* For many years, the FBI had been placing secret microphones on street-
* lamps, telephone poles, parking meters and empty automobiles parked
near
* locations where its targets sometimes strolled. Such an outdoor array
* of surveillance devices planted near the Mulberry Street headquarters
* of John Gotti, for example, was an im****tant weapon on the FBI's long
* and eventua
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