CIA

During the Cold War, the CIA spent about $20 million on "Acoustic Kitty," implanting a microphone, battery and antenna inside a live cat to spy on Soviet diplomats. In its first field test, a taxi hit the cat near the Soviet Embassy. The CIA shut it down as impractical.

In 1944, the OSS (CIA's predecessor) published a sabotage manual: "do everything through channels," "give long speeches," "hold meetings during critical work," "require three approvals for one person's job." These enemy-sabotage tactics eerily resemble modern bureaucracy.