The Nov 11 WSJ reports on the scare tactics of security consultants in the U.S. and by their co-conspiring counterparts -- spies -- abroad: Richard Heffernan, an information-security specialist for 30 years, said his clients sometimes return to their hotel rooms to find their belongings ransacked, especially in Europe. Some European companies will pay as much as $10,000 for the laptop of a Fortune 500 executive, he adds. Watch out for tiny surveillance tools. In 1992, the Canadian government reportedly warned businessmen that the French intelligence service was bugging airline seats and using undercover agents as flight attendants. Penlight cameras placed above airline seats can make readable photos of laptop screens. Spies on planes can overhear conversations from several seats away. Look for them in business suits with plenty of luggage, says security consultant Kevin Coffey. "These guys fit in." Another consultant estimates that 45% of bugs are on fax machines, and one group of U.S. executives inadverdently gave their secrets to the competition by using the fax machine at Moscow's upscale Metropol Hotel, which is staffed with former FBI and KGB operatives. If you are carrying extremely sensitive information, be especially paranoid. All this may be too much for some companies, who say they don't have time to evade possible spies. Rather than take the trouble, some companies end up postponing business plans aborad, saying, "Forget it. We'll come back in a few years." That's what they said at the office, now listen to the bug up Gigi's.