Phones tapped at the rate of 1,000 a day (Britain)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=0TKTXO0WSUCPVQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/29/ntap129.xml


Councils, police and intelligence services are tapping and intercepting the phone calls, emails and letters of hundreds of thousands of people every year, an official report said. A total of 653 state bodies are able to intercept personal calls and emails


Those being bugged include people suspected of illegal fly-tipping as councils use little known powers to carry out increasingly sophisticated surveillance to catch offenders.... more than 1,000 of the bugging operations were flawed. In some cases, the phones of innocent people were tapped simply because of administrative errors...The report shows that in the last nine months of 2006, there were 253,557 applications to intercept private communications under surveillance laws. It is understood that most were approved. In that period 122 local authorities sought to obtain people's private communications in more than 1,600 cases. Councils are among more than 600 public bodies with the power to monitor people's private communications. Senior council officers are given the power to authorise surveillance in order to catch fly-tippers, benefit fraudsters and rogue traders. However, intelligence agencies must seek the permission of ministers while police need approval from chief constables.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: "It beggars belief that in a nine-month period, based on these figures, the entire City of Westminster could have had their phones tapped - yet Britain remains one of the few Western countries that won't allow this evidence to be used in court … to prosecute criminals and terrorists." But Sir Paul confirmed that MI5 and other intelligence agencies remain opposed to any change in the law.


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Everybody seems to be listening in

A total of 653 state bodies — including 474 councils — have the power to intercept private communications.

Bugging is usually carried out by MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the police and most people are targeted on suspicion of terrorism or serious crime.

But under laws that came into force eight years ago hundreds of public bodies can carry out surveillance.

These include the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service and local fire authorities and prison governors.

Demeter

Experiences that when my foster father was active political. He was rather "red" in his views and our phone was taped for some year.. That he in his youth have been helping the Red Army in Finmark, under the war was also a point enough to tap his phone for almost 35 year after the war:eyes:

Learned that you never talk personal on phone, better to met in person and talk.

This is wrong, and I am afraid it Will be more difficult when time goes by, and the government want to intrudes on our private life when they meant it necessary.. THis the PHONE tap we know about. How many more are there?:. Ten of thousands.. Houndres of thousands?:.

Diclotican

Sorry my bad English, not my native language