I got the same type of response as you, Fry-d-.
When I wanted to confirm my phone was tapped I asked my Optus account manager about it. They are not permitted to tell you whether your phone is tapped or not but she did find out a few other facts for me. The big telco's literally have employees whose main role is to liase with police etc to help with investigations. If the police want something specific they can get it. She couldn't tell me specifically what information was held in house but the right technician could source extensive amounts of your sms history.
But you just have to be relative about your situation. If you're a small fry the police are not going to waste thousands of dollars tracking down an sms where you may have ambiguously sounded like you were selling something.
If you do like to help your friends out every now and then a general rule of thumb, when text messaging, would be assuming your phone is actually tapped and being ridiculously ambiguous or use dumb code names.
When I wanted to confirm my phone was tapped I asked my Optus account manager about it. They are not permitted to tell you whether your phone is tapped or not but she did find out a few other facts for me. The big telco's literally have employees whose main role is to liase with police etc to help with investigations. If the police want something specific they can get it. She couldn't tell me specifically what information was held in house but the right technician could source extensive amounts of your sms history.
But you just have to be relative about your situation. If you're a small fry the police are not going to waste thousands of dollars tracking down an sms where you may have ambiguously sounded like you were selling something.
If you do like to help your friends out every now and then a general rule of thumb, when text messaging, would be assuming your phone is actually tapped and being ridiculously ambiguous or use dumb code names.