Mark Finnell

How a memory works can be damaging for a justice system and for the integrity of a justice system.

World War II has ended.

Nazi Germany has been defeated.

The US, Britain and the Soviet Union banded together to win a war.

But now the relationship between them all is, well, it's tense.

We've shifted into Cold War territory and they're watching each other with intense side eye.

And it turns out, listening to each other as well.

The year is 1951, and a British spy radio operator in Moscow is monitoring a Soviet frequency.

He's been listening for hours, and frankly, he's starting to nod off.

Until he hears something that makes him sit up and clutch his headphones in disbelief.

And it wasn't just any American voice he was listening to.

The US ambassador to Russia was the voice that they eventually managed to identify.

So the Americans swing into action.

They're searching the ambassador's study to see if they can find this listening bug.

But it turns out the bug was right in front of them, in plain sight, being looked at every single day.

But where?

I'm Mark Finnell, and this is just the tip of the mystery.

That bug would somehow spark a technology that you and I use every day to get into a gym, to travel on the train, to buy groceries.

Let's just say there's a whole bunch of consequences coming from that bug, and no one saw it coming.

So we are in 1945 and I think it's fair to say that the US and the Soviets are, well, they're frenemies.