New technology means that bugging is as easier than ever

New technology means that bugging is as easier than ever
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Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:37 am	Reply and quote this post

It remains a golden rule for spies of any persuasion that a walk in the parkis still the safest environment for receiving secret information verballyfrom an agent.
Anything divulged inside a building or a private car is potentially open to anextraordinary array of eletronic bugging devices or telephone interceptsystems. Bugging is a fine art, and the technology has leapt forward inrecent years.
The electronic bug allegedly used by the police to eavesdrop on theconversation between Babar Ahmad, suspected of having links to terroristorganisations, and Sadiq Khan, his constituency MP, during a meeting inWoodhill prison in Milton Keynes, was probably the conventional type.
The basic form of bug requires someone to listen in from several hundredsyards away, or to have a recording system hidden nearby that can store manyhours of conversation.

The Times wrote:

However, the latest electronic listening device is known as the GSM bug.Michael Marks of Spymaster, a company that supplies surveillance equipment,told The Times: “With one of these new bugs, all you have to do isplace it covertly under someone’s desk. It’s like a miniature cellularphone. You can ring it from thousands of miles away, it answers silently andyou can listen in on conversations. The GSM bug could be in an office inLondon but the person listening to the conversations could be in Australia.”
The renegade former MI5 officer, Peter Wright, author of the controversial Spycatchermemoir, claimed that in his early years as a Security Service officer, “Webugged and burgled our way across London at the state’s behest, whilepompous bowler-hatted civil servants in Whitehall pretended to look theother way.”
Since those cavalier days in the 1950s and 1960s, bugging and burgling onbehalf of the state have had to be authorised with warrants. Neitherministers nor senior civil servants have been allowed to turn a blind eye,because the security and intelligence services are accountable to Britishlaw and Parliament.
However, the level of authorisation varies according to the operation.Interception of telephone calls, post and e-mails has to be authorised witha warrant from a Secretary of State, normally the Home Secretary or ForeignSecretary, but also the Northern Ireland Secretary in dealing with Irishterrorism.
There are also two types of covert surveillance - directed and intrusive. Thelatter where police officers or MI5 officers seek to place electronicbugging devices inside residences or private vehicles, a warrant signed bythe Home Secretary is required.
However, directed surveillance, where police or the intelligence services wantto follow an individual in public or conceal a surveillance device withouthaving to interfere with property - and that includes bugging a prison cellor a table in the visitor’s room - can be authorised “internally”. In thecase of the police, authorisation can be granted by a superintendent.
Prison cells are not bugged routinely, but in the past there have beenexamples where conversations between terrorist suspects and other prisonershave been overhead by means of hidden listening devices.
In the recent trial of four Pakistani-born terrorists who pleaded guilty toplotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier, it was revealed thatMI5 had entered the house of Parviz Khan, the ringleader, and planted bugs.That break-in would have required a warrant from the Home Secretary.

Although electronic bugs remain the staple diet of the surveillance community,the mobile phone has provided a revolution in eavesdropping techniques. Theycan be used as bugging devices themselves, simply by placing them covertlyin an office or home being targeted and switching them on. Mobiles thatdouble as listening devices can be bought on the internet.
Terrorists are fully aware that encrypted mobile phones are vulnerable toeavesdropping by the authorities. “If you can acquire the service number ofthe mobile phone, what’s called the IMEI number, located just under thebattery, you can tap in to people's conversations,” Mr Marks said.
Terrorists try to foil the counter-terrorist surveillance experts by buyingpay-as-you-go mobile phones which they use once and then throw away.
When it was alleged in 2004 that Kofi Annan, then United NationsSecretary-General, had had his offices bugged by American or Britishintelligence services, there was much speculation over whether the form ofeavesdropping had been a planted mobile phone or an electronic bug.
However, there are other more sophisticated methods, including using lasertechnology. A laser beam bouncing off an office window can pick up thevibrations of conversation which can then be translated into speech.
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