When telephones are bugged, they can be made to transmit voices whether the phone is in use or not. Thus the technology to invade your privacy by means of electronic surveillance has been developed and established.

The most prevalent means of eavesdropping is by the use of telephone wiretaps. The subject’s phone need not be seen for this to be accomplished. If, for example, the target’s phone was on the tenth floor of an office building or in an apartment, a wiretap may be placed on the subject’s phone from the phone’s trunk line in the basement. Voice-activated tape recorders placed by illegal wiretappers have been found under homes. When the phone is lifted for use, conversations are taped. Posing as a telephone repairman, a person often finds it easy to gain access to the victim’s phone line.

Under most circumstances and in many countries this form of eavesdropping is illegal. Yet, according to one expert whose business it is to find and remove bugs and phone taps, “Twenty-five percent of our testing results in identifying a wiretap.”