Wire Tap

RxTx · ‎03-30-2012

Is VOIP telephone subject to the same wiretap law as a hard wired landlines? I suspect that while in the internet domain there is no wire tap law and have no wire tap protection.

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

RxTx wrote:
Is VOIP telephone subject to the same wiretap law as a hard wired landlines? I suspect that while in the internet domain there is no wire tap law and have no wire tap protection.

If your asking if they can tap your VOIP as easily as your landline, the answer is yes (and they more than likely already are). Any data that travels the internet is fair game for monitoring, including your email, your internet browsing habits, your instant messaging, and even your online banking.

AT&T has made it particularly easy, providing special facilities (in Texas IIRC) where the NSA has a permanent installation listening in on everything on AT&T's networks.

It's not like they decide there's a person of interest and then decide track him/her, it's more like they just listen to everything to decide if they have a person of interest.

Here is some more info on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act

It's always nice when our government decides it needs to spy on Americans "for our own safety". On top of that, all the money required by the telecoms to comply with CALEA came out of the taxpayers pockets.

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jfw · ‎05-11-2009

Yep, Big Brother is watching and listening.

Uniblurb3 · ‎09-14-2009

Rumor has it the guy with the name of a brand of sweeper, and was head of the FBI for 40 years, is still alive.

ScottMac · ‎08-16-2008

To tap a specific person, or group of people, the agency has to perform the same legal action as for a traditional wired (POTS) phone. i.e., probable cause or reasonable suspicion, get a tap warrentand present it to the agency.

There were some easments of process made with the Patriot Act, primarily in "who qualifies" and a reduction of the threshold of probable cause / reasonable suspicion.

VoIP is easier to tap in most cases (varies by the switch type), and requires less storage then POTS voice.

I am an AT&T employee and the postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent AT&T’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

Uniblurb3 wrote:
Rumor has it the guy with the name of a brand of sweeper, and was head of the FBI for 40 years, is still alive.

Oh, you must be talking about J. Edgar Kirby.

I heard he was spotted in a tour group at Graceland.

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell

RxTx · ‎03-30-2012

Thank you ScottMac for your reply.

I have an AT&T landline phone. I have had this line for many years and agonizing weather to give it up for a VOIP phone. A lower monthly bill is the advantage. However I do not want cede my legal privacy rights to government or law enforcement without warrant, corporate spies and foreign hackers.

ScottMac · ‎08-16-2008

Technically and legally, no difference between POTS & VoIP; "Phone is Phone."

In MY opinion (and only my opinion) my preference is with POTS; it's line powered (i.e., no battery backup to fail after 4-6 hours, and no battery to replace -which is a customer expense-) ... you'll always get dialtone if it's available to get.

VoIP may be less expensive, but if you have any circumstances that rely on having telephone communication, POTS wins nearly every time. Cellular is a close second, but depending on your serving tower(s), they can also go down after prolonged outage or wide area outage (like, not enough generators to deploy everywhere initially).

FWIW

I am an AT&T employee and the postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent AT&T’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Escapee · ‎09-09-2009

With VoIP every line is in the same pipe with little data address tags to ID your conversation or data and to route your conversation to the right place. So to listen to your conversation they have to filter out your conversation from every other conversation in the pipe. With POTS each customer is on a separate wire. POTS may or may not be on a copper pair all the way back to the Central Office. In the old BellSouth area most of the POTS lines are feed by Remote Terminals RTs. RTs are powered by commercial power and when that goes out by backup batteries. They do a great job getting generators hooked up before the batteries give out so you may not lose your phone line. Many people want the POTS line for that rare power failure then they connect a wireless base station to it which is plugged into the house power. They lose their phone service if the don't have a old phone that just plugs in to the phone line. As stated by others they have to get a warrant to listen to your conversation on POTS, VoIP, or Cell phone.

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

Escapee wrote:
With VoIP every line is in the same pipe with little data address tags to ID your conversation or data and to route your conversation to the right place. So to listen to your conversation they have to filter out your conversation from every other conversation in the pipe. With POTS each customer is on a separate wire. POTS may or may not be on a copper pair all the way back to the Central Office. In the old BellSouth area most of the POTS lines are feed by Remote Terminals RTs. RTs are powered by commercial power and when that goes out by backup batteries. They do a great job getting generators hooked up before the batteries give out so you may not lose your phone line. Many people want the POTS line for that rare power failure then they connect a wireless base station to it which is plugged into the house power. They lose their phone service if the don't have a old phone that just plugs in to the phone line. As stated by others they have to get a warrant to listen to your conversation on POTS, VoIP, or Cell phone.

You mean they supposed to get a warrant. Even with POTS, once past the CO it's on to the backbone and through the NSA vault at AT&T. The problem, is there is so much data with POTS, VOIP, messaging, internet, and cell phones, that they can not process it fast enough in real-time, so it's all recorded (and stored indefinately) to go over later. If they then decide that you are a "Person of Interest" they can theoretically make the warrant retroactive and have 3 or 4 years worth of practically everything you did over the phone (of any sort) or on the internet, to hold against you.

That being said, POTS is definately the most reliable (better than 99% uptime in my area) and by far the best thing AT&T does. We had a power outage that lasted 4 and 1/2 days due to a storm and the phone was out for about an hour after the storm while they repaired an overhead cable that looked about 2.5 inch diameter which was taken down by a tree limb. After the repair though, the phone (and my old-style DSL) was back up and running throughout the power outage without further interuption

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell.

Escapee · ‎09-09-2009

supposed LOL

BeeBeeSA · ‎06-26-2009

To chime in......All you need is a butt set (or butt in depending on where your at), and you can listen into anyones conversation from the X-box. Of course we are talking analog/POTS lines. Back in the days when I was running service at businesses and having a call for static, disconnects, etc., you connect up to the line to monitor and you could hear some conversations that I would still not talk about.

I think it's unethical to relay any info you find out during a service call like that. It was fun to know who I was dealing with though. I knew and they didn't.

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spd2demun · ‎07-28-2007

Is that what they guys are doing at the x-connects when they have their handsets plugged in?

Uniblurb3 · ‎09-14-2009

Probably. Years ago a friend of mine had an old junker car and his dad worked for the phone company. The kid had an old phone co. handset with the clips and everytime his car broke down he would head to the nearest cross-box to call for help. I'm sure he broke into/heard more than one conversation.

Wonder how many people are still around that have heard of a "party-line"?

spd2demun · ‎07-28-2007

Yeah, why don't they lock those things? Our cross-connect's doors were stuck open after a storm once; I went home and got a hammer to whack the door rails back into place.

I remember party lines, though we never had one.

Isn't there a device you can plug into your phoneline that detects (with a beep) if you're being recorded/tapped?

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

spd2demun wrote:
Yeah, why don't they lock those things? Our cross-connect's doors were stuck open after a storm once; I went home and got a hammer to whack the door rails back into place.

I remember party lines, though we never had one.

Isn't there a device you can plug into your phoneline that detects (with a beep) if you're being recorded/tapped?

IIRC that beep was supposed to be transmitted by the recording party so that you were aware or reminded that your call was being recorded. Aparently they've done away with stipulation. Either that or AT&T never records your call even though they say they might.

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell

Uniblurb3 · ‎09-14-2009

I remember years ago taking training through the FBI on illegal searches and seizures along with wire taps/recorded calls. But we were low-key enforcement officers as Park Rangers. I'm sure the laws are constantly changing but it seemed kind of one-sided where only one party of a two-sided phone call needed to be made aware the call was being recorded. So in other words the individual being recorded does not need to be notified the call is being recorded and this is only done as a courtesy. At least this is how it was 10-15 years ago but the law in regards to court cases may be different than those used by businesses.

Believe the bottom line is businesses may be able to gather personal info on calls, but really doubt if they take the time to do this, but they could not use any illegal activity overheard/recorded in any type of prosecution by authorities. Not saying they couldn't turn this info over to enforcement agencies though for further investigation. And post-911 Home Security threats are a whole difference ball game.

spd2demun · ‎07-28-2007

That's what I'm thinking of, and I haven't heard a beep in ages! What I was always taught--don't say anything over the phone that you wouldn't say to someone in person.

Escapee · ‎09-09-2009

A fellow tech shocked be when he said he was clipped on and heard two ladies describe a film showing at the drive-in that was hotter the way they described it then the film on the screen. I will say that is about as much as is said about conversations heard by techs.

With cell phones the only time we are clipped on to a line is when we are working on that line.

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

Uniblurb3 wrote:
I remember years ago taking training through the FBI on illegal searches and seizures along with wire taps/recorded calls. But we were low-key enforcement officers as Park Rangers. I'm sure the laws are constantly changing but it seemed kind of one-sided where only one party of a two-sided phone call needed to be made aware the call was being recorded. So in other words the individual being recorded does not need to be notified the call is being recorded and this is only done as a courtesy. At least this is how it was 10-15 years ago but the law in regards to court cases may be different than those used by businesses.

Believe the bottom line is businesses may be able to gather personal info on calls, but really doubt if they take the time to do this, but they could not use any illegal activity overheard/recorded in any type of prosecution by authorities. Not saying they couldn't turn this info over to enforcement agencies though for further investigation. And post-911 Home Security threats are a whole difference ball game.

Well, you guys had to do something about those missing pic-a-nic baskets. Did ya send Yogi down to Gitmo?

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them." :Bertrand Russell

Uniblurb3 · ‎09-14-2009

Computer-Joe wrote:

Uniblurb3 wrote:

I remember years ago taking training through the FBI on illegal searches and seizures along with wire taps/recorded calls. But we were low-key enforcement officers as Park Rangers. I'm sure the laws are constantly changing but it seemed kind of one-sided where only one party of a two-sided phone call needed to be made aware the call was being recorded. So in other words the individual being recorded does not need to be notified the call is being recorded and this is only done as a courtesy. At least this is how it was 10-15 years ago but the law in regards to court cases may be different than those used by businesses.

Believe the bottom line is businesses may be able to gather personal info on calls, but really doubt if they take the time to do this, but they could not use any illegal activity overheard/recorded in any type of prosecution by authorities. Not saying they couldn't turn this info over to enforcement agencies though for further investigation. And post-911 Home Security threats are a whole difference ball game.

Well, you guys had to do something about those missing pic-a-nic baskets. Did ya send Yogi down to Gitmo?