January 28, 2005
What's bugging ministers about phone taps?
Despite a crackdown on terror suspects, Britain stands almost alone in the West in barring phone tap evidence from being heard in court. BBC News explains why.
"Phone tapping is a common weapon in the armoury of detectives and government spies, so it may come as a surprise to learn that evidence from telephone taps cannot be used in court.
[...] As it stands, tapes from conventional bugs - not attached to phones - can be used in court. Telephone conversations on an internal network can also be used and so can material where one of the people on the line is an undercover officer.
But a taped phone conversation between a suspect and a third party, on a landline or a mobile phone, is inadmissible. It can only be used for intelligence purposes.
[...] New mobile phones make bugging increasingly difficult. Conversations on old analogue phones could be heard using a £99 scanner, but today's standard mobiles use encryption. A decrypting device to unscramble calls costs hundreds of thousands of pounds. The latest mobiles are even harder to tap, although landlines are still relatively easy."
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