A Look Back At Spy Equipment From The Cold War As NSA Hearing Continues

BERLIN, GERMANY - OCTOBER 30: An F21 'Ammer' spy camera is displayed at the Stasi (Staatssicherheit), or East German Secret Police Museum, on October 30, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. German officials have maintained that they had strong evidence indicating that the American Nation Security Agency (NSA) has eavesdropped on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone, surveillance that the U.S. has since claimed is essential to its security operations and is standard procedure. The charge has caused a furor among political leaders across Europe, but is particularly troublesome to those who, like Merkel, grew up in the former East Germany and have recent memories of being spied upon by their own government. In response to anger over the matter from Germany, Mexico, France, Spain and Brazil ,the U.S. Senate Intelligence committee is currently conducting a major review of such surveillance operations, while the NSA insists that any such data collected on ordinary citizens turned over to the agency had been conducted by the local allied governments themselves. (Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images)