How EXACTLY do the FASCISTS tap our phones?

[in_cog_ni_to]

Is it done through the phone lines? Is it a bug in the phone? Do they bug from the phone company? How exactly is it done? How do you know if YOUR phone is tapped or your house is bugged? Just curious. :) I wonder if ALL Congressional Democrats have had their offices, cars and homes swept for bugs and wiretaps?

[babylonsister]

1. I dunno, but I imagine many Dems are extremely curious!

Hopefully that will carry over into a thorough investigation.

[tularetom]

2. With the cooperation of the phone company

Saw an item somewhere that the admin had enlisted the assistance of telecommunications companies in their NSA snooping. It sounded quite high tech and like it involved ALL overseas calls no matter where they originated, so it would be unlikely that such a tap could be detected.

[Midlodemocrat]

4. I had a neighbor that worked for Verizon and

he tapped his own lines because he suspected wifey was having an affair. She was. She never caught on. After hearing that, I don't think it is that difficult.

[BobFly5]

15. How to tap phone lines

Tapping a phone line is very simple to do; however incredible illegal.

1) If the person has a radio scanner you can get people with cordless phones. With cheaper scanners you will be able to get cheaper older cordless phones. if your scanner goes up into the 900Mhz range you will get the newer 900 Mhz analog phones. If your scanner has a digital decoder then you can get most cordless phones but only one side of the conversation because newer models transmit and receive on different frequencies. There are many websites that have the specific frequencies to listen in on.

2) Most houses have a telephone access panel located somewhere outside. Open it up and you will see four wires going into your house. Red, Green, Black and Yellow. Your most concerned with red and green ones. Those are the ones that will carry telephone signal. Attach two wires to each terminal (depending on how yours is set up you may need a telephone punch block tool) and attach them to pin 1 and 4 of a phone jack. Then your ready to record, the c crane company makes a great phone line recorder that you can use (only use it legally though).

[sexybomber]

23. Welcome to DU

:hi:

Four posts and you're already a rebel! I salute you! :toast:

(Well, in the sense that disseminating the methods for tapping a phone is, AFAIK, illegal...)

[in_cog_ni_to]

5. The telecommunication companies didn't tell the Gov't to go to hell?

WTF? They didn't QUESTION what those bastards were doing? They just went along? They didn't see anything wrong with THEIR government spying on it's own citizens?:scared: Damn. This is even worse than I thought it was.:(

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. They didn't have a choice...believe me.

[WinkyDink]

17. "National Security", aka: Gitmo!

[Solo_in_MD]

13. Its called CALEA and its the law since 1994

check out http://www.cdt.org/digi_tele/ eee.epic.org has stuff on it as well but I can't get to it right now.

They are going after VOIP as well. Recall seeing some recent postings on that recently but don't have a link handy

[gristy]

3. All your phone calls are reduced to packets of ones and zeros

Those packets have headers on them. Reading these headers, the phone company's hardware and software ensures that the audio that these packets represent make their way to the phone of the person you are talking to.

The gov't has similar equipment to read these headers and packets of ones and zeros.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. They also tap the microwave relay stations that communicate with sats

they have even figured out how to tap fiberoptics. (which can have thousands of simultaneous calls going on at the same time)

Of course, if the telcom company simply lets you hook into their switching equipment, heh, just think of babies, candy and theft.

[Don Claybrook]

8. traditional phone calls are not packetized data

Newer, voice over IP (VOIP), or IP telephony, is as you describe it, and the technology is being rapidly adopted. But the majority of calls are still old-style analog converted to digital for the ride across the fiber, usually alongside packetized data. They can still get it all, however, so the end result is the same.

[gristy]

19. But doesn't the data have to be "packetized" in some fashion so that

multiple calls can be interleaved on the fiber? I admit I am a bit out of my field here.

[rman]

22. Not just VOIP but pretty much all phone traffic is digitized

at some point, so that it can be handled by digital switches and fiber optic land lines.

Tapping digital traffic requires no physical 'hacking' - since it's digital, tapping can be done by means of computer software.

[Don Claybrook]

26. It is digitized in the sense that it's converted to pulses of light

and that's how it's transferred across fiber. But usually 'packet' is the designation used for a unit of data in the network layer of a TCP/IP implementation. Voice, on the other hand, usually goes across in channels, or bundles of channels. Again, it's usually in the same "pipe" with data and other voice, and at that level, it's all pulses of light through fiber optic cable.

But after looking at my description above, it just doesn't make a whit of difference as far as our discussion here goes. If our uncle Sam is sitting on these switches, he can get the data, the voice, or whatever is cruising through the switch fabric, irrespective of its transmission type.

note: I'm a data guy who is semi-well-versed in voice technologies, but there are definitely more knowledgeable voice types out there.

[Aimah]

7. After 9-11

There were theories that the phone companies where listening to all calls electronically and would mark a line if they heard "terrorist like" words. Too many of the same kind of words would get the line listened to by someone either the phone company or FBI. Everyone said those people were crazy now it doesn't seem so far fetched.

[BuyingThyme]

11. Yes, people were going around, putting stickers on pay phones.

The stickers said, "WARNING: John Ashcroft is listening," etc.

[Retired AF Dem]

18. It would of to be "etc"

I don't think John is around anymore. :)

[bridgit]

9. phone company swithes...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5689130&mesg_id=5689130

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. Do a Google search using "NSA electronic surveillance".

[peanutbrittle]

14. I had a situation one time

whereas, on my cell phone, everytime I would dial this one certain phone number it would automatically throw an extra digit into the number i was dialing, such as a 7 and the call would go through. It was the strangest thing. Has anyone had this experience or know anything about what this could have been?

[Retired AF Dem]

16. Phone lines aren't actually being tapped

That is not efficient at all plus even the NSA don't have the man power to "tap" thousands or millions of phone lines. Long distance and esp cell phone calls are transmitted in the open. So just think of listening to a radio, this is the same concept have a radio set to the right freq and you can listen in to cell and long distance phone calls.

[peacetalksforall]

20. Isn't a distinction required - between mining and targeting?

Wouldn't the telecommunication companies that said yes do the mining? Wouldn't government employees (or outsourced contractors who are cleared for national security revelations HA HA HA) do the targeting?

By the way - I compiled a list of questions we should be keeping in mind as we learn what went down.

Did the tele companies receive cold cash? Only favors and contracts? Or nothing?

Are there any co's who said NO (as Daschle said NO on behalf of the country when asked to change the language to spy on us.)

If any said no, did they also decide not to reveal that they were asked?

Were they asked or were they ordered? If ordered, what language, authority and signature was in and on the order? Were they called together or were they approaced individually? Did George or Dick approach them? Or Queen Liar?

Did the NSA handle everything? Did the CIA, DIA, or State Dept know or facilitate it?

Did the legal departments of these companies check out the law? If yes, what were their findings?

Have the WH and NSA records already been destroyed? If there were any?

Have the tele co's files been destroyed?

Is the database with its software and data accessible to anyone from Congress?

To consider a parallel to another scnadal - were any journalists or networks or other media biggies in on this?

Whose software was used to store, compile, and analyze? Did they custom design the programs? If yes, who participated?

Who were the analysts? Did they all speak Arabic, Farsi, French or any other language of the countries their terrorists come from? How about Hebrew? Tagalog? Chinese? It can be assumed that if they were only spying on potential terrorists, that 95% of the analysts would speak and read Arabic or one of the other languages of terrorists?

Were messages in the languages of the suspect terrorists translated by anyone special or by software? If software, whose software?

What priority was used to process data and translate it?

Was the work outsourced? If yes, to which country? Who arranged it? Who monitors it? Who receives the results? What does this cost? Whose budget does it come out of?

Was any of this operation shared with, by, or in Echelon spying?

Will Frist, Roberts, Hastert, DeLay/Blunt stop any Congressional action to ask these questions?

It appears that tele co's facilitated our radical right wing leaders. DO these tele co's give a damn about the B of Rights and us?

Will the citizens and our leaders give a damn?

We now have another divisive issue at hand - those who are fearfully (and/or hatefully) blind and submissive and those who understand what it means constitutionally starting with caring what the law is.

We need the details of how it was done. The people need to know. Thanks for posting this question.

[mtnsnake]

21. If we knew how, they probably wouldn't be doing it!

Let's just assume they're doing it, or that they at least have the capability of doing it. I'm pretty careful what I say on the phone, especially when on a cell phone, which supposedly are easy to eavesdrop on.

[sexybomber]

24. Anything that broadcasts a signal can theoretically be tapped.

Unless said signal is encrypted by very strong (a la PGP) methods.

[babylonsister]

25. Here's a possibly related thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5687460&mesg_id=5687460