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I'm Chad Abumrod. This is Radio Lab. A couple years ago, we did a show about a crazy Cold War

CIA operation and a little trick that the CIA invented to say something without saying anything

at all. And it just felt like, uh, this one sort of vibe

with the moment, you know, with the Mueller report coming out and all the redactions and

intelligence and counterintelligence about Russia. I don't know. The story just kind of resonated

with us again. Um, it also sort of feels like a throwback to an earlier, simpler time.

So, we're just going to replay it this week. Hey, I'm Chad Abramrod. And I'm Robert Quillwich. And today on the podcast, Hey, Robert, can you scoop back a little bit from the mic? I think I'm worried. We have a cloak and dagger maritime adventure and secrecy and truth from reporter Julia Barton. So, Jeff, maybe first you could start off just by introducing yourself. Yeah, So the story for me begins with this guy. Yeah, my name is Jeff Larson. I'm the data editor at ProPublica. ProPublica is this investigative journalism outfit, and Jeff does a lot of their... Data-based reporting. So in any case, it was summer of 2013. You know that big story about how the NSA had just been monitoring millions of Verizon

customers? That just came out. Jeff's watching the story like all of us are. And then the thought

occurred to him, geez, they're monitoring all of these people. Hey, does that include me?

So he goes over to the NSA's website. He was surprised to find that right there on the site.

You could file a Privacy Act request for your metadata.

...