The Family Jewels is the common name given to a set of reports that details activities conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Considered illegal or inappropriate, these actions were conducted over the span of decades, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. William Colby, who was the CIA director in the mid-1970s and helped in the compilation of the reports, dubbed them the "skeletons" in the CIA's closet. The issues included confinement of a KGB defector, wiretapping and surveillance of journalists, break-ins at former CIA employees' homes and defectors, mail opening, assassination plots, mind control experiments, and illegal domestic surveillance.