MOBILE IN TRACKING SUSPECTS

Mobile phones - the new fingerprints
By Chris Summers BBC News Online
Ian Huntley's conviction for the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was based partly on crucial mobile phone evidence - which nowadays is almost as useful to the police as fingerprints or DNA.
Jessica's mobile logged on to a mast at Burwell
Huntley was knowledgeable about some aspects of forensic science - such as analysis of fibres - but it was his ignorance about mobile phones that proved his undoing.
He was not alone in being unaware of how powerful evidence from cellular phone networks could be when it comes to proving where somebody was at a key moment.
In the past five years, dozens of murderers have been convicted partly as a result of evidence about their mobile phones or those of their victims.
Detectives now routinely contact the mobile phone networks and obtain details of phone calls made by and to a murder victim and from the prime suspects.
Trials featuring mobile phone evidence
Stuart Campbell (Dec 2002): Convicted of murdering Danielle Jones
Colm Murphy (Jan 2002): Convicted of Omagh bomb plot
Two juveniles (Apr 2002): Acquitted of murdering Damilola Taylor
Senthamil Thillainathan (Jun 2003): Convicted, along with two others, of killing a Tamil youth
Jack Whomes and Mick Steele (Jan 1998): Convicted of murdering three gangsters in Essex (but seeking appeal based on new mobile phone evidence)
The response varies from network to network.
David Bristowe, the prosecution's expert witness on mobile phones at the Soham trial, believes companies should be forced to keep the data longer.
"The data should be kept for at least two years because you never know how a case is going to develop and when you might need to trace somebody's calls."
Jack Wraith, of the Mobile Phone Industry Crime Action Forum, which represents the networks, said there was a conflict between public interest and the Data Protection Act.
He said: "There have been moves under the Terrorism Act to make us retain data for longer but the networks said to the Home Office: 'If you want us to keep this data you must legislate, otherwise we will not be covered by the law and could be sued'."
Only one point on the girls' route was served by Burwell - Huntley's house
Most organised criminals are aware of the dangers of being tracked by their mobiles. Professional drug dealers and armed robbers will often buy pay-as-you-go phones a few days before they plan a crime and dispose of them straight afterwards.
Mr Bristowe told BBC News Online: "It was mobile phone evidence which made the police look more closely at Huntley.
"He had been Mr Useful, helping them to search the college grounds, but when they checked Jessica's phone and discovered when and where it had been switched off alarm bells began to ring."
He said: "The evidence against Huntley was simple.
"There were two aspects. One was 'where was Jessica's phone when it turned off?' and the other was 'where was Huntley's phone a couple of days later when he changed tyres on his car in Ely?'."
Mr Bristowe told the trial Jessica's phone "disengaged itself from the network, in effect it says goodbye" at 1846BST on the Sunday when the girls disappeared.
Mobile phone evidence helped convict Stuart Campbell of murdering Danielle Jones
He told the jury that when mobile phones are switched off they go through a process which is recorded by the cell site mast providing the last signal.
Although a cell site mast at Soham football club served most of the village there were several small "hot spots" which instead linked to a mast at Burwell several miles away.
Jessica's phone contacted the Burwell mast when it was turned off.
Mr Bristowe told BBC News Online: "The police provided us with a map of the route they thought the girls would have taken, and the only place on that route where the phone could have logged on to Burwell was inside or just outside Huntley's house."
It is believed to be that crumb of crucial evidence which forced Huntley to change his story earlier this year and suddenly admit the girls died in his bathroom albeit in bizarre circumstances.
Huntley, faced with the phone evidence about Ely, also admitted he had changed the tyres on his car a day after dumping the bodies.
In the 1990s juries were shown complex cell site maps such as this one
But while mobile phone evidence is routinely used by the police when seeking evidence to link people to crimes it may also be a useful tool for those trying to clear their names.
In 1998 Jack Whomes and Mick Steele were jailed for life for the murder of three Essex gangsters, who were found shot dead in a Range Rover parked in a quiet lane near the village of Rettendon.
The jury were given complex evidence about mobile phones which, the prosecution claimed, placed Whomes at the scene of the crime on the night of the killings.
A supergrass, Darren Nicholls, who claimed to have been the getaway driver, told the trial Whomes had phoned him from the lane after the killings.
But Mr Bristowe has since returned to Workhouse Lane in Rettendon and carried out extensive tests using Whomes' own mobile.
Jack Whomes is hoping new tests on his mobile phone will prove his innocence
He made about 60 calls at various places in the lane, and not one of those calls was routed through the cell site at a place called Hockley, as the prosecution had claimed.
Mr Bristowe said his tests supported Whomes' own version of events - that he was more than a mile away picking up Nicholls' broken down car.
He also believes the phone evidence was lost on the jury at the 1998 trial because it was so complex.
Whomes and Steele are hoping to find out in January if their case has been referred back to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3303637.stm
http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial_04/edit_nov_22_04_01.htm
What is telephone tapping
Telephone recording , Voice logging , Telephone recorder
Telephone / wire tapping

"Telephone tapping" (or "wire tapping"/"wiretapping" in the US) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The "telephone tap" or "wire tap" received its name because historically, the monitoring connection was applied to the wires of the telephone line of the person who was being monitored and drew off or tapped a small amount of the electrical signal carrying the conversation. Legalized wiretapping by the police or other recognized governmental authority is otherwise known as lawful interception.





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Legal status
Telephone tapping is officially strictly controlled in many countries to safeguard an individual's privacy; this is the case in all developed democracies. In theory, telephone tapping often needs to be authorized by a court, and is, again in theory, normally only approved when evidence shows it is not possible to detect criminal or subversive activity in less intrusive ways; often the law and regulations require that the crime investigated must be at least of a certain severity. In many jurisdictions however, permission for telephone tapping is easily obtained on a routine basis without further investigation by the court or other entity granting such permission. Illegal or unauthorized telephone tapping is often a criminal offence. However, in certain jurisdictions such as Germany, courts will accept illegally recorded phone calls without the other party's consent as evidence.


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In the United States, federal agencies may be authorized to engage in wiretaps by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a court with secret proceedings, in certain circumstances.
Under United States federal law and most state laws there is nothing illegal about one of the parties to a telephone call recording the conversation, or giving permission for calls to be recorded or permitting their telephone line to be tapped. However, several states (i.e., California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington) require that all parties consent when one party wants to record a telephone conversation. Michigan has a similar rule: anyone who is a party to the conversation can record it himself, but a third party wishing to record the call must get the permission of all parties to the conversation.


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Many businesses and other organizations record their telephone calls so that they can prove what was said, train their staff, or monitor performance. This activity may not be considered telephone tapping in some, but not all, jurisdictions because it is done with the knowledge of at least one of the parties to the telephone conversation. It is considered better practice to announce at the beginning of a call that the conversation is being recorded.
Wiretapping methods
The official tapping of telephone lines
Lawful interception
The contracts or licenses by which the state controls telephone companies often require that the companies must provide access for tapping lines to the Intelligence services and the police. In the U.S., telecommunications carriers are required by law to cooperate in the interception of communications for law enforcement purposes under the terms of Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). Taps must be secret and undetectable.
When telephone exchanges were mechanical, a tap had to be installed by technicians, linking circuits together to route the audio signal from the call. Now that many exchanges have been converted to digital technology tapping is far simpler and can be ordered remotely by computer. Public switched telephone network and telephone services provided by cable TV companies also use digital switching technology. If the tap is implemented at a digital switch, the switching computer simply copies the digitized bits that represent the phone conversation to a second line and it is impossible to tell whether a line is being tapped. A well designed tap installed on a phone wire can be difficult to detect. The noises that some people believe to be telephone taps are simply crosstalk created by the coupling of signals from other phone lines.
Data on the calling and called number, time of call and duration, will generally be collected automatically on all calls and stored for later use by the billing department of the phone company. This data can be accessed by security services, often with fewer legal restrictions than for a tap. This information used to be collected using special equipment known as "pen registers" and "trap and trace devices" and U.S. law still refers to it under those names. Today, a list of all calls to a specific number can be obtained by sorting billing records. A telephone tap during which only the call information is recorded but not the contents of the phone calls themselves, is called a "Pen Register" tap.
For telephone services via digital exchanges, the information collected may additionally include a log of the type of communications media being used (some services treat data and voice communications differently to conserve bandwidth).
The unofficial tapping of telephone lines
It is also possible to tap conversations unofficially. There are a number of ways to monitor telephone conversations:
"Recording the conversation" - the person making/receiving the call records the conversation using a coil tap ('telephone pickup coil') attached to the ear-piece, or they fit an in-line tap with a recording output. Both of these are easily available through electrical shops. A more modern alternative is to use telephone recording devices connected to computers, such as PhoneValet Message Center. Most who record telephone conversations, such as journalists, will refer to the recording for their work.
"Direct line tap" - this is what the state used to do via the telephone exchange. But unofficial tapping, where the user's line is physically tapped near the house, is also possible. The tap can either involve a direct electrical connection to the line, or an induction coil. An induction coil is usually placed underneath the base of a telephone or on the back of a telephone handset to pick up the signal inductively. With a direct connection, there will be some drop in signal levels because of the loss of power from the line, and it may also generate noise on the line. A well designed induction tap does not drain voltage or current from the line because it isn't physically connected to the phone line. Direct taps sometimes require regular maintenance, either to change tapes or replace batteries, which may give away their presence.
"Radio tap" - this is like a bug that fits on the telephone line. The state does not normally do this because they have access via the telephone exchange, though certain organizations exempt from the common framework of law applying to citizens may use devices like this. It can be fitted to one phone inside the house, or outside on the phone line. It may produce noise (there might even be signal feedback on the monitored line on poorly made equipment) to inadvertently alert the caller. Modern state of the art equipment operates in the 30-300 GHz range. The unit is powered from the line to be maintenance free, and only transmits when a call is in progress. These devices tend to be low powered because the drain on the line would become too great, however a state of the art receiver could be located as far away as ten kilometers under ideal conditions, but is usually located within a radius of 1 to 3 km. Research however has also shown that a Artificial satellite can be used to receive Electromagnetic emissions in the range of a few milliwatts.
To guard against unofficial amateur line taps, the phone should be regularly inspected, and the telephone line should be checked for new joints, or small wires connected to the line; a time-domain reflectometer is a worthy tool here. If you have reason to suspect your phone has been tapped consult a technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM) specialist. Never contact a TSCM specialist from a phone you suspect is tapped or on any other phone on the premises or any other phone that is linked to you or your organization (home phone, company cellular, etc.).
Location data and mobile phones
Mobile phones are, in surveillance terms, a major liability. This liability will only increase as the new third-generation (3G) phones are introduced. This is because the base stations will be located closer together.
For mobile phones the major threat is the collection of communications data. This data not only includes information about the time, duration, originator and recipient of the call, but also the identification of the base station where the call was made from, which equals its approximate geographical location. This data is stored with the details of the call and has utmost importance for traffic analysis.
It is also possible to get greater resolution of a phone's location by combining information from a number of cells surrounding the location, which cells routinely communicate (to agree on the next handoff—for a moving phone) and measuring the timing advance, a correction for the speed of light in the Global System for Mobile Communications GSM standard. This additional precision must be specifically enabled by the telephone company - it is not part of ordinary operation. There is no countermeasure against the state/telephone companies doing this, perhaps with an exception of locking the phone to only one distant base station and accessing it from a distance using a high-gain antenna (which significantly impairs the attractive mobility), limiting the location data disclosed to the network to a quite large distant arc (not a circle - the base station antennas are typically divided into three individually controlled sectors, usually 120° each).
The second generation mobile phones (circa 1978 through 1990) could be easily monitored by anyone with a 'scanning all-band receiver' because the system used an analogue transmission system-like an ordinary radio transmitter. The third generation digital phones are harder to monitor because they use digitally encoded and compressed transmission. However the government can tap mobile phones with the cooperation of the phone company. It is also possible for organizations with the correct technical equipment, such as large corporations, to monitor mobile phone communications and decrypt the audio. A special device called an "IMSI-catcher" pretends to the mobile phones in its vicinity to be a legitimate base station of the mobile phone network, subjecting the communication between the phone and the network to a man in the middle attack. This is possible because while the mobile phone has to authenticate itself to the mobile telephone network, the network does not authenticate itself to the phone. This blatant flaw in GSM security was intentionally introduced to facilitate eavesdropping without the knowledge or cooperation of the mobile phone network. Once the mobile phone has accepted the IMSI-catcher as its base station the IMSI-catcher can deactivate GSM encryption using a special flag. All calls made from the tapped mobile phone go through the IMSI-catcher and are then passed on to the mobile network. Up to now no phone is known which actively alerts the user when a base station or an IMSI-catcher deactivates GSM encryption. Some phones include a special monitor mode (activated with secret codes or special software) which displays GSM operating parameters such as encryption while a call is being made. But no matter whether GSM encryption is active or not, users should not trust the encryption to be secure enough to foil an eavesdropper. The GSM specification refers to the encryption algorithms used for encrypting voice/data services as algorithms A5/1,2,3. Today a ciphertext-only attack (an attack without knowledge of some of the originally unencrypted plaintext) requires a few milliseconds to find the correct A5 decryption key allowing the attacker to eavesdrop on any GSM phone conversation in less than a second. Other exploits on GSM security easily allow call hijacking, altering of data messages and call theft. There is no defense against IMSI-catcher based eavesdropping, except using end-to-end call encryption; products offering this feature, secure telephones, are already beginning to appear on the market, though they tend to be expensive and incompatible with each other, which limits their proliferation, much to the joy of various intelligence agencies.
There were proposals for European mobile phones to use stronger encryption, but this was opposed by a number of European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, which are among the world's most prolific telephone tappers (over 10000+ phone numbers in both countries in 2003).
Mobile phones can be used anonymously. Pre-paid mobile phones are available without being associated with a name or address, and because cards are used there is no billing information. However, once the user has been identified as using a certain phone, they can be tracked with the unique built-in International Mobile Equipment Identification (International Mobile Equipment IdentityIMEI) encoded into each mobile phone. The IMEI emitted by the phone does not change, regardless of the SIM in the phone. It is even transmitted when no SIM at all is present in the phone. If longer-term anonymity is required, it is necessary to replace the phone and SIM every few days. Sometimes, for complete anonymity it is not advisable to have a mobile phone on your person at all. Some phones may still transmit information to the network or be accessible from the network even though the user has switched them off. It is therefore strongly recommended to remove the batteries from the phone.
One-ring calls
These calls cannot be recognized by caller ID as a CID displays the caller's number only between the first two rings. The purpose of a one-ring call is usually to determine if a person is using the phone. Accessing the telephone exchange is the only way to determine the origin of these calls.
Internet wiretapping
As technologies emerge, including VOIP, new questions emerge about law enforcement access to communications.
The Internet Engineering Task Force has decided not to consider requirements for wiretapping as part of the process for creating and maintaining IETF standards. http://www.potaroo.net/ietf/idref/rfc2804/.
History of wiretapping
During the American Civil War, government officials under President Abraham Lincoln eavesdropped on telegraph conversations. Telephone wiretapping began in the 1890s, following the invention of the telephone recorder. Wiretapping has also been carried out under most Presidents, usually with a lawful warrant since the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional in 1928. Domestic wiretapping under the Clinton administration led to the capture of Aldrich Ames, a former Soviet spy in 1994. Robert F. Kennedy monitored the activity of Martin Luther King Jr. by wiretapping in 1966.
In the Greek telephone tapping case 2004-2005 more than 100 mobile phone numbers belonging mostly to members of the Greek government, including the Prime Minister of Greece, and top-ranking civil servants were found to have been illegally tapped for a period of at least one year. The Greek government concluded this had been done by a foreign intelligence agency, for security reasons related to the 2004 Olympic Games, by unlawfully activating the lawful interception subsystem of the Vodafone Greece mobile network.
The most recent case of U.S. wiretapping was the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy discovered in December 2005. It aroused much controversy, after several people accused President George W. Bush of violating a specific federal statute (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ActFISA) and the United States Constitution. The president argued his authorization was consistent with other federal statutes (AUMF), other provisions of the Constitution, and was necessary to keep America safe from terrorism, and could lead to the capture of notorious terrorists responsible for 9/11.
http://www.callcorder.com/wiretapping.htm

Telephone tapping
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Wiretap redirects here. For the radio program, see WireTap (radio program)
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Lawful interception. (Discuss)

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This article needs additional citations for verification.Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007)
Telephone tapping (or wire tapping/wiretapping in the USA) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The telephone or wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on the telephone line. Legal wiretapping by a government agency is also called lawful interception. Passive wiretapping monitors or records the traffic, while active wiretapping alters or otherwise affects it.
Contents
[hide]
1 Legal status
2 Methods
2.1 Official use
2.2 Unofficial use
2.3 Location data
2.4 Internet
3 Webtapping
4 History
4.1 NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
//
[edit] Legal status
Main article: Telephone recording laws

Telephone line control device "Jitka", used in late 60's of 20th century by Czech StB to signal line occupancy, and connect a recorder
Telephone tapping is officially strictly controlled in many countries to safeguard an individual's privacy; this is the case in all developed democracies. In theory, telephone tapping often needs to be authorized by a court, and is, again in theory, normally only approved when evidence shows it is not possible to detect criminal or subversive activity in less intrusive ways; often the law and regulations require that the crime investigated must be at least of a certain severity. In many jurisdictions however, permission for telephone tapping is easily obtained on a routine basis without further investigation by the court or other entity granting such permission. Illegal or unauthorised telephone tapping is often a criminal offense. However, in certain jurisdictions such as Germany, courts will accept illegally recorded phone calls without the other party's consent as evidence[citation needed] .
In the United States, federal agencies may be authorized to engage in wiretaps by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a court with secret proceedings, in certain circumstances.
Under United States federal law and most state laws there is nothing illegal about one of the parties to a telephone call recording the conversation, or giving permission for calls to be recorded or permitting their telephone line to be tapped. However the telephone recording laws in some U.S. states require only one party to be aware of the recording, while other states require both parties to be aware. It is considered better practice to announce at the beginning of a call that the conversation is being recorded.
[edit] Methods
[edit] Official use
Main article: Lawful interception
The contracts or licenses by which the state controls telephone companies often require that the companies must provide access for tapping lines to the security services[citation needed] and the police. In the U.S., telecommunications carriers are required by law to cooperate in the interception of communications for law enforcement purposes under the terms of Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).
When telephone exchanges were mechanical, a tap had to be installed by technicians, linking circuits together to route the audio signal from the call. Now that many exchanges have been converted to digital technology tapping is far simpler and can be ordered remotely by computer. Telephone services provided by cable TV companies also use digital switching technology. If the tap is implemented at a digital switch, the switching computer simply copies the digitized bits that represent the phone conversation to a second line and it is impossible to tell whether a line is being tapped. A well-designed tap installed on a phone wire can be difficult to detect. The noises that some people believe to be telephone taps are simply crosstalk created by the coupling of signals from other phone lines.
Data on the calling and called number, time of call and duration, will generally be collected automatically on all calls and stored for later use by the billing department of the phone company. These data can be accessed by security services, often with fewer legal restrictions than for a tap. This information used to be collected using special equipment known as pen registers and trap and trace devices and U.S. law still refers to it under those names. Today, a list of all calls to a specific number can be obtained by sorting billing records. A telephone tap during which only the call information is recorded but not the contents of the phone calls themselves, is called a pen register tap.
For telephone services via digital exchanges, the information collected may additionally include a log of the type of communications media being used (some services treat data and voice communications differently to conserve bandwidth).
See also: Carnivore (FBI)
[edit] Unofficial use

A telephone recording adapter (in-line tap). The phone jack connects to the wall socket while the phone being monitored is connected to the adapter's socket. The audio plug connects to the recording device (computer, tape recorder, etc).
Conversations can be recorded or monitored unofficially, either by tapping by a third party without the knowledge of the parties to the conversation, or recorded by one of the parties. This may be legal or not depending upon the circumstances and the jurisdiction.
There are a number of ways to monitor telephone conversations. One of the parties may record the conversation by several methods, either on a tape or solid-state recording device, or on a computer running call recording software. The recording,whether overt or covert, may be started manually, automatically by detecting sound on the line (VOX), or automatically whenever the phone is off the hook.
using an inductive coil tap (telephone pickup coil) attached to the handset or near the base of the telephone[1];
fitting an in-line tap, as discussed below, with a recording output;
using an in-ear microphone while holding the telephone to the ear normally; this picks up both ends of the conversation without too much disparity between the volumes[2]
more crudely and with lower quality, simply using a speaker-phone and recording with a normal microphone
The conversation may be monitored (listened to or recorded) covertly by a third party by using an induction coil or a direct electrical connection to the line using a beige box. An induction coil is usually placed underneath the base of a telephone or on the back of a telephone handset to pick up the signal inductively. An electrical connection can be made anywhere in the telephone system, and need not be in the same premises as the telephone. Some apparatus may require occasional access to replace batteries or tapes. Poorly designed tapping or transmitting equipment can cause interference audible to users of the telephone.
The tapped signal may either be recorded at the site of the tap or transmitted by radio or over the telephone wires. As of 2007[update] state-of-the-art equipment operates in the 30-300 GHz range.[citation needed] The transmitter may be powered from the line to be maintenance-free, and only transmits when a call is in progress. These devices are low-powered as not much power can be drawn from the line, but a state-of-the-art receiver could be located as far away as ten kilometers under ideal conditions, though usually located much closer. Research has shown that a satellite can be used to receive terrestrial transmissions with a power of a few milliwatts.[citation needed] Any sort of radio transmitter whose presence is suspected is detectable with suitable equipment.
Conversation on many early cordless telephones could be picked up with a simple radio scanner or sometimes even a domestic radio. Widespread digital spread spectrum technology and encryption make eavesdropping this way much more difficult.
A problem with recording a telephone conversation is that the recorded volume of the two speakers may be very different. A simple tap will have this problem. An in-ear microphone, while involving an additional distorting step by converting the electrical signal to sound and back again, in practice gives better-matched volume. Dedicated, and relatively expensive, telephone recording equipment equalises the sound at both ends from a direct tap much better.
[edit] Location data
Mobile phones are, in surveillance terms, a major liability. This liability will only increase as the new third-generation (3G) phones are introduced, as the base stations will be located closer together. For mobile phones the major threat is the collection of communications data. This data does not only include information about the time, duration, originator and recipient of the call, but also the identification of the base station where the call was made from, which equals its approximate geographical location. This data is stored with the details of the call and has utmost importance for traffic analysis.
It is also possible to get greater resolution of a phone's location by combining information from a number of cells surrounding the location, which cells routinely communicate (to agree on the next handoff—for a moving phone) and measuring the timing advance, a correction for the speed of light in the GSM standard. This additional precision must be specifically enabled by the telephone company - it is not part of ordinary operation.
The second generation mobile phones (circa 1978 through 1990) could be easily monitored by anyone with a 'scanning all-band receiver' because the system used an analog transmission system-like an ordinary radio transmitter. The third generation digital phones are harder to monitor because they use digitally-encoded and compressed transmission. However the government can tap mobile phones with the cooperation of the phone company. It is also possible for organizations with the correct technical equipment to monitor mobile phone communications and decrypt the audio. A device called an "IMSI-catcher" pretends to the mobile phones in its vicinity to be a legitimate base station of the mobile phone network, subjecting the communication between the phone and the network to a man-in-the-middle attack. This is possible because while the mobile phone has to authenticate itself to the mobile telephone network, the network does not authenticate itself to the phone. Once the mobile phone has accepted the IMSI-catcher as its base station the IMSI-catcher can deactivate GSM encryption using a special flag. All calls made from the tapped mobile phone go through the IMSI-catcher and are then passed on to the mobile network. Some phones include a special monitor mode (activated with secret codes or special software) which displays GSM operating parameters such as encryption while a call is being made. There is no defense against IMSI-catcher based eavesdropping, except using end-to-end call encryption; products offering this feature, secure telephones, are already beginning to appear on the market, though they tend to be expensive and incompatible with each other, which limits their proliferation.
There were proposals for European mobile phones to use stronger encryption, but this was opposed by a number of European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, which are among the world's most prolific telephone tappers (over 10,000+ phone numbers in both countries in 2003).[citation needed]
[edit] Internet
In 1995, Peter Garza, a Special Agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, conducted the first court-ordered Internet wiretap in the United States while investigating Julio Cesar Ardita ("El Griton").
As technologies emerge, including VoIP, new questions are raised about law enforcement access to communications (see VoIP recording). In 2004, the Federal Communications Commission was asked to clarify how the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) related to Internet service providers. The FCC stated that “providers of broadband Internet access and voice over Internet protocol (“VoIP”) services are regulable as “telecommunications carriers” under the Act.”[3] Those affected by the Act will have to provide access to law enforcement officers who need to monitor or intercept communications transmitted through their networks. As of 2009, warrantless surveillance of internet activity has consistently been upheld in FISA court.[4]
The Internet Engineering Task Force has decided not to consider requirements for wiretapping as part of the process for creating and maintaining IETF standards (RFC 2804).
Typically, illegal Internet wiretapping will be conducted via Wi-Fi connection to someone's internet by cracking the WEP or WPA key, using a tool such as Aircrack-ng or Kismet. Once in, the intruder will rely on a number of potential tactics, for example an ARP spoofing attack which will allow the intruder to view packets in a tool such as Wireshark or Ettercap.
One issue that Internet wiretapping is yet to overcome is that of steganography, whereby a user encodes, or “hides”, one file inside another (usually a larger, dense file like a MP3 or JPEG image). With modern advancements in encoding technologies, the resulting combined file is essentially indistinguishable to anyone attempting to view it, unless they have the necessary protocol to extract the hidden file.[5][6] US News reported that this technique was commonly used by Osama bin Laden as a way to communicate with his terrorist cells.[7]
There are a number of freely available steganographic programs available online, such as Wnstorm, QuickCrypto, and TextHide.
[edit] Webtapping
Though the practice is more closely analogous to call tracing, logging the IP addresses of users that access certain websites is commonly called "Webtapping".
Webtapping is used to monitor websites that presumably contain dangerous or sensitive materials, and the people that access them. Though it is allowed by the USA PATRIOT Act, it is considered by many a questionable practice, if not an all-out violation of civil liberties.
[edit] History
Telephone wiretapping began in the 1890s, following the invention of the telephone recorder. Wiretapping has also been carried out under most Presidents, usually with a lawful warrant since the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional in 1928. On October 19, 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who served under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, authorized the FBI to begin wiretapping the communications of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The wiretaps remained in place until April 1965 at his home and June 1966 at his office.[8]
The history of voice communication technology begins in 1876 with the invention of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. In the 1890s, “law enforcement agencies begin tapping wires on early telephone networks”. [9] Remote voice communications “were carried almost exclusively by circuit-switched systems,” where telephone switches would connect wires to form a continuous circuit and disconnect the wires when the call ended) .All other telephone services, such as call forwarding and message taking, were handled by human operators.[10] However, the first computerized telephone switch was developed by Bell Labs in 1965. This got rid of standard wiretapping techniques.[9]
In the 1970s, optical fibers become a medium for telecommunications. These fiber lines, which are “long, thin strands of glass that carry signals via laser light,” do not have delays, are more secure than radio, and have become very cheap. From the 1990s to the present, the majority of communications from “one fixed location to another have moved by fiber.” Since these fiber communications are “wired,” U.S. law “gives them greater protection.”[9][10]
The earliest wiretaps were extra wires—“connected to the line between the telephone company’s central office and the subscriber—that carried the signal to a pair of earphones and a recorder. Later on, wiretaps were installed at the central office on the frames that held the incoming wires”.[10]
Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent entry of the United States into World War II, the U.S. House of Representatives held hearings on the legality of wiretapping for national defense. Significant legislation and judicial decisions on the legality and constitutionality of wiretapping had taken place years before World War II.[11] However, it took on new urgency at that time of national crisis.The actions of the government regarding wiretapping for the purpose of national defense in the current war on terror have drawn considerable attention and criticism. In the World War II era, the public was also aware of the controversy over the question of the constitutionality and legality of wiretapping. Furthermore, the public was concerned with the decisions that the legislative and judicial branches of the government were making regarding wiretapping.[12]
In the Greek telephone tapping case 2004-2005 more than 100 mobile phone numbers belonging mostly to members of the Greek government, including the Prime Minister of Greece, and top-ranking civil servants were found to have been illegally tapped for a period of at least one year. The Greek government concluded this had been done by a foreign intelligence agency, for security reasons related to the 2004 Olympic Games, by unlawfully activating the lawful interception subsystem of the Vodafone Greece mobile network. An Italian tapping case which surfaced in November 2007 revealed significant manipulation of the news at the national television company RAI.[13].

CrimethInc. sticker on a telephone warning users of phone tapping by the U.S. government.
In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that wiretapping (or “intercepting communications”) requires a warrant in the Katz v. United States case. In 1968, Congress passed a law that provided warrants for wiretapping in criminal investigations. In 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created a “secret federal court for issuing wiretap warrants in national security cases.” This was in response to findings from the Watergate break-in, which allegedly uncovered a history of presidential operations that had used surveillance on domestic and foreign political organizations.
In 1994, Congress approved the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which “requires telephone companies to be able to install more effective wiretaps. In 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) wanted to expand CALEA requirements to VoIP service. ”.[9][10]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled in August 2005 that “broadband-service providers and interconnected VoIP providers fall within CALEA’s scope. Currently, instant messaging, web boards and site visits are not included in CALEA’s jurisdiction.[14] In 2007, Congress amended FISA to “allow the government to monitor more communications without a warrant.” In 2008, President George W. Bush expanded the surveillance of internet traffic to and from the U.S. government by signing a national security directive. [9]
The most recent case of U.S. wiretapping was the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy discovered in December 2005. It aroused much controversy, after then President George W. Bush admitted to violating a specific federal statute (FISA) and the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The President claimed his authorization was consistent with other federal statutes (AUMF) and other provisions of the Constitution, was necessary to keep America safe from terrorism, and could lead to the capture of notorious terrorists responsible for the September 11 attacks in 2001.
One difference between foreign wiretapping and domestic wiretapping is that, when operating in other countries, “American intelligence services could not place wiretaps on phone lines as easily as they could in the U.S.” Also, domestically, wiretapping is regarded as an extreme investigative technique, whereas outside of the country, the interception of communications is huge. The National Security Agency (NSA) “spends billions of dollars every year intercepting foreign communications from ground bases, ships, airplanes and satellites”.[10]
FISA distinguishes between U.S. persons and foreigners, between communications inside and outside the U.S., and between wired and wireless communications. Wired communications within the U.S. are protected, since intercepting them requires a warrant.[10]
[edit] NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
Main article: NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
In the most recent issue concerning warrantless wiretapping, earlier in 2007 a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court ruled that it increased restraints on the National Security Agency (NSA). The new court ruling requires the NSA to obtain a warrant when intercepting or eavesdropping on foreign-to-foreign intelligence if it passes through any U.S. networks. The Bush Administration in response to this passed a stopgap legislation very quickly through congress that only temporarily relieves the NSA of this prior ruling. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said to Congress that the new ruling could potentially decrease the amount of useful information they collected on groups like al Qaeda by almost two thirds. He also stated that applying for a warrant can run up to 90 pages and can be time consuming and labor intensive. [15]
Very active in this issue is The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU has brought about many legal cases challenging the constitutionality of the bill, asserting that it violates Americans' right to free speech and privacy. They have filed lawsuits, motions, and complaints in over 27 states so far to oppose any legislation that encourages unchecked government surveillance.[16] In response to the government arguments, Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office has said of the bill: “Where will Congress go from here? More unfettered power for an administration that has no respect for the privacy of the citizenry that elected it?”[17]
The stopgap that was hastily put in place by the former Bush Administration expires in February 2008 but Congress and FISA are trying to reach a compromise on the details of the bill to be passed. To reach a compromise both sides are reaching a middle ground on determining when a warrant is or is not necessary. ACLU advocates are pushing to require NSA to provide individual warrants when Americans are involved and on the other hand, U.S. intelligence agencies and the Administration would like as few obstacles in their way of intercepting private information. Both sides have both shown the possibility for a compromise to accept a Bill that would require a FISA court to approve NSA’s procedures while intercepting foreign intelligence when it involves Americans. [15]
However, a new addition to this bill, that was recently insisted on by then President Bush and Mike McConnell, would grant immunity to telecommunications companies for any "intelligence activity involving communications" that was "designed to detect or prevent a terrorist attack" or attack preparations.[18] The Bush Administration has acknowledged that intelligence agencies conducted warrantless eavesdropping on Americans with the help of Telecom companies such as Verizon, AT&T, and Qwest.[19] All three of these Telecom companies face multiple civil lawsuits related to their handling of phone records and the passing of this bill would grant them immunity.
In favor of the bill, McConnell has said, such immunity is necessary to prevent the telecoms from being bankrupted and to encourage them to continue to cooperate with intelligence agencies. Bush has said that he will veto any intelligence bill passed that does not include immunity.[18] Liz Rose, spokeswoman for the Washington office of the ACLU, says the language of the bill is a "blank check" that would cover not only the warrantless wiretapping program the Bush administration has acknowledged, but any unconfirmed or previously unknown program. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., promised to lead a filibuster to block approval of retroactive immunity. "Retroactive immunity set the terrible precedent that breaking the law is permissible and companies need not worry about the privacy of their customers," Feingold said.[18]
The bill now goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and in the Senate, committees have split on how to handle immunity. With many senators outspoken about their reservations of the bill, more information is needed to continue the proceedings. For now, legislation is stalled in the House.[19]
[edit] See also
Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc
Secure telephone
Echelon (signals intelligence)
Mass surveillance
[edit] References
^ Use of magnetic telephone pickup coil
^ An example of an in-ear telephone recording microphone
^ http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-266204A1.pdf
^ www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16ifsa.html?_r=2&hp
^ http://news.cnet.com/Wire-tapping-the-internet/2010-1071_3-281569.html
^ http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1684 10.
^ http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/010924/archive_006712_7.htm
^ http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200207/garrow
^ a b c d e http://issuu.com/sciam/docs/2008-09_pg58_2?mode=embed&documentId=080820180613-64657d58c38f4897941bc60b292f46d6&layout=grey
^ a b c d e f http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-eavesdropping
^ Congress, House, Committee on the Judiciary, To Authorize Wire Tapping, 76th Cong., first sess., 1941-02-03, 1.
^ Congress, House, Committee on the Judiciary, Authorizing Wire Tapping in the Prosecution of the War, 77th Cong., second sess., 1942-02-18, 7-8.
^ The Times, 23 November 2008
^ http://www.voip-news.com/feature/guide-calea-030608/
^ a b Whitelaw, K: "The Rules for Eavesdropping", page 39. U.S. News & World Report, 143(13), 2007
^ : http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/spymap/
^ Fredrickson, C. “Congress Legalizes Warrantless Wiretapping for Americans”. American Civil Liberties Union, 2007-08-07. (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/31200prs20070807.html)
^ a b c Willing, R. “Intelligence Bill May Hinge on Immunity for Telecoms” USA Today, 2007-11-28
^ a b Willing, R. “Dodd To Block Vote on Eavesdropping Bill”. USA Today, 2007-10-19
[edit] External links
A guide to whether phone conversations can be taped in the United States
RFC 2804
How Stuff Works: A guide on wiretapping, how it works and links to other resources.
List of U.S. States with two party or one party consent laws
Guide to lawful intercept legislation around the world
Privacy Laws by State
In Pellicano Case, Lessons in Wiretapping Skills NYTimes May 5, 2008
Lawyers for Guantanamo Inmates Accuse US of Eavesdropping NYTimes May 7, 2008
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Espionage
Agent handling · Black operation · Black bag operation · Concealment device · Cryptography · Dead drop · Eavesdropping · False flag · Clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting · Industrial espionage · Interrogation · Non-official cover · Official cover · Steganography · Surveillance (Computer · Cyber)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_tapping"
Categories: Covert listening devices Espionage Law enforcement techniques Espionage devices Espionage techniques Surveillance Privacy of telecommunications Law enforcement agency powers
Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from July 2007 All pages needing cleanup All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2007 All articles containing potentially dated statements Articles with unsourced statements from July 2007
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