Natural News and CNet.com learned that the FBI has developed a technique that can remotely activate a nearby cell phone’s microphone, thereby turning it into a listening device. The “roving bug” technique was approved by U.S. Department of Justice officials for use on members of an organized crime family in New York that was getting increasingly suspicious of tails, wiretaps or other traditional surveillance techniques. [1]
Government intelligence agencies have the technology to turn any telephone into a microphone, and listen to every conversation that is said in the privacy of a home or business office while the telephone is not being used. [2] Tips on how to detect this kind of bugging can be found on the Internet. [3]
Carnivore was a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation designed to monitor email and electronic communications. It used a customizable packer sniffer that can monitor all of a target user’s Internet traffic. It was implemented during the Clinton administration with the approval of the Attorney General. The FBI changed the name of Carnivore to DCS 1000 due to massive negative press coverage. The program was canceled in 2001, but it was replaced with improved commercial software such as NarusInsight. [4]
NarusInsight is a supercomputer system which is used by the NSA and other government agencies to perform mass surveillance and monitoring of citizens’ and corporations’ Internet communications in real-time, and whose installation in AT&T’s San Francisco Internet backbone gave rise to a 2006 class action lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T, Hepting v. AT&T. [5]
Endnotes
[1]McCullagh, Declan and Broache, Anne. “FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool.” CNET News. 12.01.2006.
[2]. www.tscmvideo.com/eavesdropping/hookswitch%20bypass.html#.
[3] www.iiiweb.net/go/tscm.
[4] Fox News. “FBI DITCHES CARNIVORE SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM.” 1.18.2005.
[ [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NarusInsight. & www.eff.org/cases/att. www.nar us.com & Bamford, James, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.