Law : tapping phones

Im wondering if anyone knows how easy it is for police to get permission to tap peoples phones ?.. Id be grateful for any related info any1 could supply.

afaik , tapping of phones (be it land line , public , mobile (cdma or digital) is quite easy. It was explained to me like this.
If you are a target (police , federal poilice , nca) => they will tap your phone , but they already know what you are doing.
If you call a target => they will ascertain if you are worthy of tapping. If you are a user , do not be overly concerned. If you are a dealer , well they now know who you are and can initiate a tap on yr phone.
Do not treat the phones lightly. Those little codes that people use do not stop them realising what you are doing.
SMS on digital phones can also be de-crypted.
I am not meaning to sound all doomsday and shit , but for the majority of us it is not an issue as we are the _end_ user.

Idk if this is any help but is a well know fact the state of NSW (Aust) has more wire taps than the state of NY (USA) as the legislation in the Tele communications Act or NSW criminal code makes it easy for the police to tape phone as the do not have to go to far up the criminal justice system.
PS sorry I can be more specific the info comes form a subject I did a year for criminology.

.. Im from nsw...
2 things..
1) Is there any easy way to find out / know you are being tapped ?.
2) Are mobile phones tapped easily ?.. Someone told me they cant be tapped is that bs ?.

Mobile phones would be extremely easy to tap - on a technological basis alone, scanners, which aren't that hard to obtain can do the job. On a legal basis, I don't know what the situation is.
I doubt it would be easy to find out if you're being tapped... perhaps, in a roundabout way you could request a copy of the applications submitted to court requesting phone taps, as one has to be submitted and approved before any phone tap can be initiated. Don't like your chances, tho.
This is only heresay - people I know do law - so it could be totally wrong, mind!
[This message has been edited by Evilduck (edited 05 August 2000).]

afaik, digital mobile phone calls can't be picked up by scanners because they switch frequencies every few seconds or something. It only worked with the old analogue phones.

I dont know if n e one else does this but whenever im on the phone and talk about drugs or n e thing illegal i tend to use code words or pig-latin or anything other than blurting it out! haha is this just me being a paranoid bitch or do you all do it? LOL
and as for it being easy for police to tap your phone being it home or mobile, yes it would but they would have to have reason 2 id say, There is a way to stop it, so they cant for short periods of time, i cant actually remember but it has something to do with a fridge or freezer, sounds stupid i know, I will try to get more info on it for you though! *HUGS*

OK, I NEED TO KNOW
What is the deal???? Does ANYONE know? Anyone with any authority on the matter?
I keep hearing conflicting arguments abiout the status of being able to tap digital phones. My dd is EXTREMELY paranoid (good thing if you ask me) so much so that talking on the phone is EXTREMELY difficult and i get so flustered and confused 'cause i don't want to fuck up, but i also dont think it's so necessary.
Anyway, i heard this loud mouth guy on the train the other night saying how he KNOWS his phone is being tapped (by some chick who's in love with him blah di blah - hehee he was probably lying).. anyway, miss apple used to work for optus and she swears they can;t tap didgital phones.. or they can but it's WAY hard.
does anyone really know? can they quote a reputable source?
mona.
[This message has been edited by mona (edited 05 August 2000).]

ok..a friend of mine told me that theres certain words u say on your mobile that picks up the tapping.now i didnt think it was true,but then another person told me the same thing.so next time u talk on your phone about drugs,make up some kind of code name 4 it,just in case this word tapping thing is true.

fwiw.
It does not matter the type of phone. They can tap it (digital too). There is no real voice recognition software in place that allows a machine to decide if you are a drug dealer/ arms (or legs for that matter) dealer / terrorist.
It is people like you and I sitting down listening to what people say or do on the phones that are tapped 24 hrs a day.
There would a set of Standards in place for the practice of it , which should be readily available to anyone but it may depend on who does the tapping. There are several organisations out there which are allowed to do it so they may each have been given different access to the phone networks.

okay - i've done a bit of a search for you all and come up with the following links for you to check out:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca191482/
go to section 3R
AND
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta1979350/
check out sections 45 and 46 in particular
i'm currently studying the criminal justice system (as a subject for my criminology major)and last week we briefly touched on police powers. actually it made me realise how little i really know about my rights and how open our laws are to police discretion, especially regarding stopping and searching and laws about entering premises . one of the issues that came up was phone tapping and although we didn't discuss this topic in-depth out tutor informed us that it is fairly difficult to obtain a warrant for phone tapping and that police are petitioning to have their powers increased (re. phone tapping). but then again, i wouldn't take that to mean you won't be bugged.
hope that helped
/bluegirl
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Prepare for the future - mutate!

If have some good news and some bad news.........First the bad.They can certainly tap digital phones, the federal police would not allow them to be launched before they had the encryption information they needed from the phone manufacturers.It was quiet an issue amongst the technology industry and civil liberalterians at the time.
The good news is that only Federal police, and only for the their juristiction can a phone tap be placed on a digital phone.
This means you have to have some cross border action going before your digital mobile can be tapped legally.
At least that was the law that was made when digital were first launched, I dont know what has happened in the meantime....The safest way is not to get invovled at all
ha ha

Doesn't my name remind you of the cheesy names on "Hackers" Well anyway i do have a bit of a clue on the topic of tapping phones. Basically, if your not the federal police you've got *fuck all* chance of doing it. But if you are the federal police...well, fuck you.

So if your phone is being tapped it's not by your neighbourhood police. I couldn't imagine most small time dealers being tapped unless they're really sloppy. But i dunno where the police put there resources...
With ground lines being tapped, i dunno exactely. But when they do it messes with the voltage or current of the line and if you know how you can pick up on it and "snoop on to them while they snoop onto us" hahaha.
If anyone wants I can find the exact info

an important thing to remember is unless you are a mr big you wont get targeted... even if by chance a conversation you make gets intercepted the cops will only use this as information to help them get a picture of what you are dpoing, itis unlikely that they will subsequently use it as evidence against you in court.
cops have been known to place taps without warrants, all this means is they can't use the transcripts as evidence against you. but what it does tell them is where you are going to be with certain substances on you. this is where the problem lies. a "random" search of your car once you've been pulled over for "speeding" might suddenly turn into an arrest for trafficking. this is impossible to prove as anything other than bad luck.
no one gets convicted on the strength of phone intercepts alone. usually it is the testimony of your so called "mates" that will send you away. 9 out of ten people who go to jail for major drug offences are convicted on the testimony of someone they, until that moment in court, considered to be a good friend. this "friend" has been pressured by the police to rat on you in exchange for a lesser sentance. another sad but true fact.
mona: yes it's true that the technonolgy exists for the tapping of digital phonecalls but it is my understanding that this is only done by federal agencies as it requires access to computers at the major exchanges of the phone companies.
i had a mate who worked with australian and american spooks in the setting up of the protocols for the tapping. the americans were very interested, as at that point they were almost entirely analogue and wanted to help set up a tapping system in a friendly country that was going digital, before they had to try it in their own country. who was behind it? no such agency...
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"i think i'll stick to drugs to get me thru the long, dark night of late-capitalism..."
Irvine Welsh

For those of you in sydney unless you were living under a rock u would of heard about all the busts in bankstown telopa st ..
For those of you that dont " 200 police swooped on telopa st this morning in dawn raids " they go on to tell us they " intercepted " 4000 yes 4000 drug related calls in 4 months ...
That is why i actually started the thread.. because its been on my mind for awhile and that was the final straw..
Btw the people that got arrested ( 14 ) were caught with 350,000 worth of drugs, cash etc..
But we all know that the $$ the police qoute are always highly inflated...
Mr bigs... no.. But mr middles ..

Mr Headline

Digital Mobiles...aka...GSM phones use very high level encryption and compression. They work using time and frequency multiplexing and when you are on the move you will also be handed over from base station to base station. The only way you would have your mobile tapped was if someone got hold of your phone and 'fucked about with it' (that is the technical term! So unless someone has physically got hold of it, you'll be right. Remember tho if you are talking to someone on a landline that end of the conversation can be listened to easily. So for safety go digital to digital!
Kay....later

Okay all you people who want to know about digital mobiles. I worked for 2.5 years in mobile mhone communications. We were developing an interface betweeen analogue and digital mobile phones. As soon as someone would walk into the building, the mobile would use the buildings PABX. Therefore your personal mobile would have your deskphones extension, you could make calls and it would only be a local call throught the PABX..blah blah.
Anyway, all you need to listen into a GSM phone is a $250000 comms analyser. These are suppliedd by HP, Motorola, Ericsson...etc...
No special decryption boxes or anything. GSM is a standard, and to test the GSM transcievers you need a test set. All the GSM ocmms analysers have the standard decryption built in. Analogue phones are a lot easier. You can listen with a standard comms analyser, or any scanning transceiver that can tune on the frequency band between 790-950 odd MHz.
All in all, yes the police could scan you if you had a digital phone. BUT the cost of the equipment alone is a huge proportion of the budget. So I would say that it is probably more likely that the federal police would have this gear, and they only have the money and inclination to go for very big time dealers.
Anyway, that's just some facts mixed with my opinion.
Oh yeah, and one more thing...Yes they do go from base station to base station but the FREQUENCY stays the same. You can pick any one of a number of phones out on that frequency. And your phone does send an (encrypted) ID which can also be easily picked up (with the correct hardware) so if they know your phone ID they can tap your phone no matter which frequency or TDM slot you are on. Of course this is what has people concerned about stealing ID's. It won't work if it's digital because if the service detects 2 identical IDs then the service is immedialtely suspended. This ID is transmitted once every now and then when your phone announces itself to the surrounding base stations. It is retransmitted everytime you leave 1 cell and go into another one.
*stopping the endless rambling*
DB
[This message has been edited by Darkblade (edited 07 August 2000).]

telopea st was like a drive through macca's hahaha

ha ha ha drive through... i can see it now
[adidas clad drugslut runs out to car window]
Can I help ya?
Yeah can I grab 2 eckies
would you like to upgrade to a 10 batch for an extra $275?
any go with that sir?
have a sik night sir.