(no subject)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I've got a question for the fine and upstanding members of this comm.


What do you do if you realize that your phone is tapped? Assume that you are engaging in no criminal activity. What do you do? Go to the local police? Go up the ladder?


And when I say, "you realize" I mean, you are on the phone with someone, you are about to hang-up after the other person has clearly hung up already and quite clearly you hear a male voice (that is obviously different from the person you were just on the phone with) say, "Ok, he's hung up now, end the tape"

Aside from pondering why the police are spending their resources on someone as innocent as you, what do you do? Just live with it? Accept that your phone is tapped? Live like nothing happened? Do you go to a lawyer?

What would YOU do?

Comments

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

This is why I have my attorney on speed-dial.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Ain't worried they're gonna hear that call? =)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Talk to a lawyer. In person sounds like a good idea.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I don't use telephones.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Luddite.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Get my meds adjusted.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

ha-ha

But seriously. Or do you assume that the police never tap an innocent persons phone?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Why would you do that?

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I just always assume all communications are tapped. So this would just confirm my beliefs?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So you go with the "continue life as normal" route, eh?

[merig00.livejournal.com]

http://daredevil92103.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/how-to-tell-if-your-phone-is-being-tapped-just-interesting-stuff/

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

and if the answer is yes, then what?
(also, I'm not sure that is the most reliable website around. anything that doesn't look like some random person with a website?)

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

You claim you're innocent, but we've read what you write. ;-)

Seriously, the pros don't make mistakes like that. A court-ordered wiretap is not detectable to the phone user, since it goes through the exchange. Anything gets recorded passively.

Heck, the phone taps I used to pull for fun were undetectable, since they involved hacking the tapped phone directly or using an extension system. The equipment for such exploits? Radio Shack. It isn't hard.

So, who would make a boner mistake like that? Probably someone outside the legal framework. Time to really watch what's said on your phone.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

It was mostly a hypothetical.

And I don't trust the police to be any different than any other sort of people. Prone to err.
And I never supposed that this was a court-ordered wiretap.

Also, police go outside the legal framework all the time.

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

I'd talk to my therapist. I'd be sure I was imagining things.

My BFF and I, when we hear a click on the line, say, "Hello, phone tapper! We hope you're not too bored!" or some such. The whole idea that either of us could possibly be considered suspicious is laughable.

(We'll probably continue to think so until the police storm our homes in the middle of the night. :))

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Well right; I think most of us feel far too insignificant for the powers that be to spend their energy on us.

But, the powers that be, are sometimes really really dumb. So who knows.

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

Disinformation

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

hahaha, I like this too.
but that seems like it'd be kinda intensive to test.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

All digital communications are keyword and pattern searched, in the case of the feds. Local police tapping your line happens frequently if you're a protester or a member of an activist association that any level of government has an issue with.

Carry on as usual, citizen.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

You need to stop reading my mind. It's way creepier than tapping my phone!

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

As the old (possibly urban legend) mafioso used to do, answer the phone with a clear "Fuck Hoover?"

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Classic Carlin.

[speciesofspaces.livejournal.com]

I would get a different phone, one that is more secure. Is this via a landline? Get rid of it. Use cell phones.

I would not assume that it was me who was being tapped (especially if its a landline, especially x 2 if its an old landline). I would also not assume that any tapping was done by the police.

And I would run my credit report immediately.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Get rid of it. Use cell phones. '

Heh... you know there's no "safe" monitor-free phone in the US from the feds. I mean there are... but it's point to point encrypted communications. If it's going through a switch, packet or circuit unencrypted... it's tappable by the feds.

[404.livejournal.com]

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Way to engage in dialogue.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Since I live in a country with an authoritarian government, I would assume that if they put in the effort to tap and monitor my phone by English speakers, that they would certainly arrest me for something. I'd pack up everyone quickly and head to the US embassy.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Unless you are fluent in the native tongue, I would imagine that those listening to you would be English speakers. It'd be pretty poor surveillance to tape an english speakers phone but to have only russian speakers listening.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

That wouldn't be an official police wire-tap for one.

Normally the tap is conducted by.....

sorry... there's a knock on my door. I'll go see who it is and be right back.

[caerfrli.livejournal.com]

Get a burner. Get a lawyer. Say hello and goodbye politely to the police whenever you use your land line.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

But seriously... phone taps won't be actively monitored. There are a multiple amount of ways to tap a line. If it's done by non-telco employees or authorized gov't agents, a wiretap investigation requested by the customer would be handed over to the security department of the telco. A telco agent could NOT divulge the results of a wiretap investigation.

If you think a private investigator, who'd have to be COLOSSALLY dumb to use a set with a manual recorder to wiretap, is wiretapping you, call the telecom and request an investigation.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I firmly believe in colossally dumb people; even those with badges and guns.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but could you take a step closer to the window, please?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Which window? There are so many....

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

What do you do if you realize that your phone is tapped?

Start making shit up in a really cryptic manner. Especially really important meetings in really isolated places. Sewers are good.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

This is my favorite approach. It would be good to setup a code with friends on the sly. Here are some suggestions:

wedding banquet for birthday party
chemical mix for any meal
fertilizer for movie rental

This should pique the interest of the snoopers.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

First words out of my mouth would be, "What the fuck is this shit?". Then I'd get an attorney on the issue and start recording my own phone calls to cover my rear until the tap (or whatever) is removed.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Get everything out in the open.

Call a friend, tell them 'the package is in play' or something else secretive/badass like that.

Set up a meeting, bring a large metal box, hand it over.

You'll have something funny to joke about if you can hear each other through the co ncrete walls, assuming your 6'x6'x6' cells are next to each other.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Your last line gave me and my friend a good, honest to god, laugh out loud. Thanks.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

The obvious and only solution is to put the phone up to your stereo

And play Merzbow

Really

Fucking

Loud

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

somehow, I don't think noise annoyance is the proper counter-tactic

[theplanfailed.livejournal.com]

Go to a Lawyyer.
The FBI and Police cannot tap a phone without a court warrant.
I learned this from a book written by Joseph P. Pistone who was an undercover Agent. He spent six years undercover in the Mob and was about to be made a Made Man when the FBI pulled him out. I've got two books he wrote; and they're pretty good. He also has a good trick to get a lawyer to stop harrassing a whitness. What you do is you ask the lawyer to repeat the question to get him out of a rythm; apparently it works. I don't know though because I've never been on the stand or anything.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

You should read The Watchers. The legal framework for the court-approved wiretap expired after the telcos went to digital packet switching. The tap for the individual wire is no longer there.

As a result, there is currently no authorization for wiretaps. As a further result, the authorities just kinda do it anyway through the telcos. For a fee, a law enforcement agency can get real-time cell phone locations, five years of records of same, even recordings of calls.

That's why the big stink was raised a few years ago about the telcos cooperating with law enforcement without court order. There is no law allowing it, so what else are they going to do?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Get really, really paranoid about everything and panic like a chicken with its head cut off.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

then do the chicken dance