No humbug, this

Three kinds of taps are possible: Radio taps, direct line taps and recording taps. Each can be deployed by the government directly8212;without using any assistance from a phone company8212;or even having to inform them.

But even when there is no national security threat and there is no judicial permission to tap a phone, governments have found their escape route, through the license agreements of phone companies.

Here8217;s how: Telecom licenses in India require that companies provide access for tapping lines to security services and the police, in the interest of national security. The installation bill for this is footed by the operators, and totalls roughly Rs 1 crore for every circle, per operator.

8216;8216;The operator has to foot the bill for wiretaps and surveillance as per our license agreement. It has been a demand of industry to remove the requirement,8217;8217; says TV Ramachandran, director-general, Cellular Operator Association of India COAI.

In fact, all phone companies also maintain humongous reams of data on each customer8217;s number, in order to maintain their billing records. This information, on calls made and recieved, is collected automatically on all calls and retrieved in regular intervals of 8216;8216;billing cycles.8217;8217;

Even the time of calls and their duration can be determined using this information, it is a virtual goldmine for enforcement agencies, who can easily bully companies into parting with it.

In fact, this data often comes with fewer legal restrictions than an official tap, turning the 24/7 national security watch into an operator8217;s nightmare. A host of police officers, 8216;8216;official representatives8217;8217; of the government, monitor a range of phone calls at the operator8217;s end. This, in fact, has even led people to resign from firms.

Even in the most advanced nations, where wiretap laws exist, mobile phone companies have not been adequately covered by its provisions, leaving governments free to tap the operators on their shoulders and get them to install surveillance.

More often, the land-line networks are freely accesible at the user8217;s end, with markets full of physical tapping devices that just about anyone can pick up to listen in, record from and then use.

Operators suggest that the best way to stop your land-line phone from being tapped, specially if you suspect it is being tracked, is to detect a plain old physical device in your house or office. Scan every inch of a land-line phone wire, starting from the pole outside to the phone box inside the house and the phone itself.

Devices as small as a fingernail can do the trick of listening in over the wires, though, for recording device, you need a space big enough for a mini-cassette tape.

On mobile phone networks, the devices to record and track conversations have turned digital, and hence easy-to-use. Now, a tap need not be installed by engineers 8212; a simple computer on a phone line can do the needful. This task can be done 8216;8216;in bulk8217;8217; too, and a digital device for bugging cell phones can cost about 10,000, an Italian one even more. Back in 1998, a single cell-phone bugging device using analogue technology came at 55,700. The prices today have dropped to roughly half.

Devices like cellular scanners permit you to listen in on any 800/900 MHz the mobile-phone frequency in India cellular telephone or cordless telephone. For 400, both sides of a conversation can be heard with just a push of a button.