Inside Counterintelligence: Wiretaps and the Wall

In this fourth installment of The IWP Podcast: Inside Counterintelligence Series, Professor John Quattrocki sits down with Paul Kepp, a former senior CIA operations officer with decades of experience in the Directorate of Operations, much of it overseas. The conversation takes listeners through a deep examination of the legal authorities, surveillance tools, and institutional tensions that shaped U.S. counterintelligence. The discussion traces how American counterintelligence developed across distinct historical periods, from Roosevelt-era intervention and Hoover’s expanding remit to the post-1947 national security framework, the impact of the Church Committee, FISA, Executive Order 12333, and the changing relationship between intelligence collection and criminal prosecution. The episode also explores how presidential direction, legal barriers, interagency coordination, and resource constraints shaped the modern counterintelligence mission. Wiretaps and The Wall examines the history of U.S. counterintelligence through one of its most consequential fault lines: the struggle to balance surveillance, security, and the rule of law. This episode shows how wiretaps, courtroom realities, and government policy reshaped the roles of the FBI, CIA, and the broader intelligence community during the Cold War, the post-Cold War period, and the years after 9/11.