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Russians Order Mobile Phone Encryption Removed 302

Posted by simoniker from the static-still-encrypts-messages dept.
PenguinRadio writes "The Moscow Times is reporting that Russian security officers (The FSB, formerly the KGB) ordered all mobile phone providers to switch off their encryption systems for 24 hours, so the police could eavesdrop on all calls. An alert, either an exclamation point or an unlocked padlock, was sent to the phones in question. This is the second time such an order was given - the last time was after the hostage crisis involving Chechnya fighters in a Moscow theater. At least the Russian has the courtesy to warn all their phone users that this was going on. Not sure what the standard FBI procedure is on something like this..."
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Russians Order Mobile Phone Encryption Removed More

Russians Order Mobile Phone Encryption Removed

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  • Standard FBI procedure is.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:32PM (#6404904)
    to deny, deny, deny.

    • Document Describing Standard Procedure. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Elvisisdead ( 450946 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:45AM (#6406821) Homepage Journal
      This document [uscourts.gov] will tell you exactly what procedure is for wiretap.

      It also lists that: "In 2002, no federal wiretap reports indicated that encryption was encountered. State and local jurisdictions reported that encryption was encountered in 16 wiretaps terminated in 2002; however, in none of these cases was encryption reported to have prevented law enforcement officials from obtaining the plain text of communications intercepted. In addition, state and local jurisdictions reported that encryption was encountered in 18 wiretaps that were terminated in calendar year 2001 or earlier, but were reported for the first time in 2002; in none of these cases did encryption prevent access to the plain text of communications intercepted.

  • The official FBI policy... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bc90021 ( 43730 ) <bc90021.bc90021@net> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:32PM (#6404905) Homepage
    ...is probably to have every undercover agent in Russia drop what they're doing and man some listening devices. ;)

  • The FBI (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vought ( 160908 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:32PM (#6404907)
    Don't the NSA and FBI have access to the keys to unlock encryption per user here, or did I just see that in a bad movie* at some point?

    *Mercury Rising/Consipracy Theory/That horrible movie with Denzel, etc.

    • Re:The FBI (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Beryllium Sphere(tm) ( 193358 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:58PM (#6405052) Journal
      The session key used by the A5 cipher in the GSM standard is 64 bits. Interestingly, ten of those bits are not used. Suspicious people have claimed that the key length was reduced to facilitate eavesdropping. Carriers hotly deny this (http://jya.com/gsm042098.txt).

      Looking at it from first principles, there'd be little reason to disable encryption for a single user. Law enforcement could tap the phone network downstream of the tower, and intelligence services would want to listen to everybody. (I'm speculating 'cause I don't know).

      • Re:The FBI (Score:5, Insightful)

        by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:47PM (#6405133)

        The difference is the general level of hassle and red tape, as well as accountability. Of course if you're up there in intelligence I'm sure you can unaccountably "tap" the land phone network at will using more advanced systems (Echelon and whatever's come since come to mind) - but if you're just part of some FBI field office trying to handle an immediate situation akin to the Chechnya incident the landline option means you have to get authorization and go on record for doing it, and you have to be precise about what you're tapping, and you could be delayed by all the BS. If you can tap the airwaves easily (supposing you have a laptop that can crack the effectively 54-bit encryption of a GSM call on the air), you can do it without the fuss and without being accountable.

        Don't forget also that finding the right landline call to tap might be a needle in a haystack problem, but finding the right cellular call can be fairly easy if you're on-site near the caller, since you can just look for strong enough signal strength to be within a given radius of you physically, and furthermore even triangulate the signals' positions.
        • There are sites in Russia, like compromat.ru or flb.ru which regularly post transcripts of mobile phone calls between famous people. I have been able to follow the progress of friends/former colleagues in this way, and it's quite amusing. What is not amusing is the ease with which those calls can be tapped, even with encoding switched on. As the poster above says, someone is getting access to the signal after the tower, probably via a direct feed to the mobile operator's exchange.

          In the case of those site

      • Re:The FBI (Score:4, Interesting)

        by asynchronous13 ( 615600 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:03AM (#6405493)
        Do US cell phones even use encryption? I few years ago I worked at a company that made high-speed A/D and D/A converters. One of our test setups picked out the strongest 10 cell phone signals and we could listen in to whichever one we chose. all for, uhh, testing purposes, of course. I know that we weren't breaking any 64 bit (or 54 bit) encryptions on 10 different channels in real-time.

      • Re:The FBI (Score:4, Informative)

        by Nogami_Saeko ( 466595 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:12AM (#6405527)
        Good info on GSM technology in that link. I've always had a preference for GSM over the competing standards. It's always seemed like a more elegant solution, especially when it comes to using SIMs.

        Seemed for quite a while that GSM was going to die in Canada, but with two networks now, we're going pretty strong. With the exception of the first (analog) phone I bought, everything else has been GSM and I love the convenience of just moving my SIM from phone to phone and never having to call the company to register a handset, transfer details, worry about programming, etc.

        As posted, the GSM encryption is more than secure enough to stop casual evesdropping. It wouldn't stop law enforcement or government for long, but they can always just monitor at the cell cite, or have the service provider archive the data stream from suspect handsets anyway.

        By contrast, my 900mhz cordless phone at home has absolutely no encryption and could be monitored (albiet at short range) by anyone with a scanner. Consequently, I'd rather use the cell for talking to banks, making purchases with credit cards, etc.

        N.

      • There are two versions of A5: with full 64bit (for US, Germany etc) key and 54bit key (For Russia, Latvia, China etc).

        Two months ago I requested my GSM company about their encryption technology. They replied: "Yes, we use good encryption. No, we cannot tell you which exactly".

        Try to ask your GSM operator.

  • In Soviet Russia (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:32PM (#6404908)
    The KGB unencrypts YOU!

  • scary (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MrLint ( 519792 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:34PM (#6404925) Journal
    It kind of concerns me that the encryption isnt hardwired into the phone, and that it can be turned on an off at a whim. I wonder if the russian or US govt's allow the encryption on their stuff be turned off, or is this a lowly citizen thing only.
    • They turn it off by having the basestation refuse the handshake, at that point the only thing the phone could do is refuse to make a connection. My question would be why they would do this, it's easier for intelligence services to just request a tap at the basestation then try to recreate the conversation from the digital signal.

    • Re:scary (Score:2, Funny)

      by ogre2112 ( 134836 )
      If you were worried, I would assume you could rig up some sort of device to record your voice
      digitally which could then be encrypted if you wished, then change it into an analog signal which
      would be transmitted over the cellphone. Then the receiver could have a device to recieve the
      analog signal to decrypt it.

      Oh wait, they already invented modems. Damn, I'm always late with these ideas.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pv2b ( 231846 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:34PM (#6404926)
    The only thing GSM encryption prevents is eavesdropping on GSM calls with radio receivers. Law enforcement can still wiretap where the GSM call hits the copper, after all the call has to be decrypted by the phone network.

    I don't really see why they'd have to do this, technically.

    Perhaps they just wanted to "appease" the public by showing them that they are invading their privacy to search for Chechyen terrorists? After all, this is pretty visible.
    • Is there no way to exchange keys face to face to facilitate end-to-end encryption? Other than verbal steganography?

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by pv2b ( 231846 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:55PM (#6405034)
        A Swedish company named Sectra [sectra.se] among other things sell mobile phones with non-standard strong encryption, that only works between two of the same phones.

        But with normal GSM, not really. The GSM encryption, from what I've understood, is only intended to stop normal people from building equipment to eavesdrop on calls, not to stop law enforcement wiretaps.
        • Starium [starium.com] which has Whitfield Diffie as a director, worked on a phone to phone public key system for mobile phones, embedded in a chip, which, if the world worked right, would habve been installed by default in all cellular phones.

          They now have a new product, the "The Starium 100" which looks like the land line solution we have all been waiting for.
    • That make sense. If it is going to be public knowledge that the encryption is disabled, it's likely that the terrorists would *not* use the phone anyway. Of course, the non-use of the phones during the period in question is also "Useful Information".

    • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)

      by hughk ( 248126 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @02:16AM (#6405895) Journal
      Technically, GSM networks are quite hard to tap in the conventional sense because the way that the switches are interconnected and the calls bounce around between BSEs. Essentially, monitoring GSM requires extra software, that even in Western countries, is only being grudgingly installed by the networks.

      Also, to activate the tap requires the cooperation of the network. This means a nasty trail of paperwork and inconvenient things like warrants. This is fine when you are chasing Chechnyans, but awefully inconvenient when all you want to do is to place a squeeze on an oligarch.

  • Why bother? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by provolt ( 54870 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:36PM (#6404937)
    Not sure what the standard FBI procedure is on something like this.

    Why bother shutting off the encryption? Why not just go the the cell tower and and tap the line? Seems like it would be much easier than trying to pick calls out of the air. If you just disable the encryption, then the police would have to set up their own receiver. Why not just take advantage of receiver that's already available?

    • " Why not just take advantage of receiver that's already available?"

      So they can track down the physical location of the person making the call?

      • Re:Why bother? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by provolt ( 54870 )
        So they can track down the physical location of the person making the call?


        If the phone is within range of two towers the location could be pinned down to two locations, and a single location if it's in range of three towers. This isn't ideal, but it seems a lot more practical than dropping encryption for a large area and then using directional antennas to track them.

      • Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by afidel ( 530433 )
        They can already do this, in fact at least one phone companies policy on E-911 involves making modest upgrades to their basestation network to allow triangulation of customer devices to lead police or EMS units to the phones location when a 911 call is made.

  • It's foil-hat-tastic (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:36PM (#6404938) Homepage
    Not sure what the standard FBI procedure is on something like this...

    Isn't it obvious? They originate the signal from their secret base on the dark side of the moon, route it through ECHELON, then through the chip in your cerebellum, off the relay in the piece of fried chicken you're eating, through your computer just on general principles, then to your cell phone where it summarily cracks the encryption and displays the letters "BB." Then it kills you.

  • This is not the second time (Score:5, Informative)

    by srk ( 49331 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:37PM (#6404941) Homepage
    The same had been done also in St.Petersburg (2nd largest city in Russia). it was not a terrorist attack but rather Bush visit there last May. Security of the summit had been cited as a reason to turn off encryption.

    Russian laws require judge approval to eavesdrop on a communication. It is not known if such approvals had been granted in all these three cases.
    • Severety of Russian laws was always compensated
      by lack of obligation to follow them.

      There are laws, and there are operating instructions. They may contradict, but you'll have
      lot of problems if you would appeal to law.

      There always is something which they can incriminate
      cellular operator, such as some tax miscalculations,
      and thus withdraw license and push him out of business, if he wouldn't cooperate with FSB.

      So, SORM-1 (System for operative and searching actions) in cellular networks exists and operate.
      FS

  • FBI Procedure? (Score:4, Funny)

    by browse ( 557685 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:37PM (#6404943)
    Not sure what the standard FBI procedure is on something like this..."
    You mean what was the procedure the last time they did it, or what will be the procedure the next time?

  • In Soviet Russia.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dynedain ( 141758 ) <slashdot2@@@anthonymclin...com> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:37PM (#6404946) Homepage
    a) cell phone encryption turns on you! (how appropriate)

    b) cell phone encryption turns you on! (only on /.)

  • Courtesy Warning - Pointless? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grimani ( 215677 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:39PM (#6404952)
    I'm quite surprised that they issued a warning to the phones in question.

    Doesn't this defeat the purpose of eavesdropping?

    As if terrorists would discuss their plans via mobile phones fully knowing that the FSB is listening.

    This type of action doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than to: (1) send terrorists scrambling to other forms of communication (land lines, maybe?), (2) cause terrorists to delay their planning by a day, and (3) bring attention to the potential abuse and rile up privacy advocates everywhere.

    None of the above seem to accomplish any worthwhile goals for the FSB.

    Yes, in the hostage crisis case gain the ability to intercept terrorist communications while the crisis is in progress.

    In this case, however, the attacks have already been concluded. Two suicide bombers have taken 14 others with them. I don't think the accomplices are going to be calling the bombers anytime soon.

    • Re:Courtesy Warning - Pointless? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tbdean ( 163865 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:39PM (#6405110) Homepage
      They didn't really "issue" a warning. They turned off the encyrption - making the antenea act like it wasn't capable of performing encyrption. Then all of the phones, noticing they don't have their normal encyrption, just added one more icon to the screen.

      They only issued a warning in the sense that Iowa issues a warning to all cell phone users that you are currently roaming. It's a function of the phone, not the KGB.
    • As if terrorists would discuss their plans via mobile phones fully knowing that the FSB is listening.

      I have a theory about this.

      Cellphone encryption isn't end-to-end, it only protects the radio signal between handset and tower, so if the FSB can order it switched off they presumably also have the authority to monitor the unencrypted calls 'on the wire'

      And like you say the bombers are DEAD; it's not clear what calls they're expecting to hear.

      My theory is that it's all psychological. By switching off en

  • Crypto? What crypto? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:39PM (#6404954)
    The FBI procedure might be to use equipment that can crack worthless cellular encryption [counterpane.com] in real time.
  • What carrier lets you have encryption? I don't think it's a law or anything, but I never seen it as a feature for any of the major carriers. I have AT&T and I never saw that on the website... I remember I even tried to turn it on for my phone... it kept beeping at the beginning of the call saying encryption is not on...

    I now kinda would like to know what service does let you do it.

    • CDMA (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Detritus ( 11846 )
      I've been told that U.S. CDMA systems XOR the data frsmes with a static bit pattern. Needless to say, that is pathetically easy to crack.

      U.S. law enforcement agencies and the TLAs do not want cellular users to have ubiquitous encryption.

      Warrants? Warrants? We don't need no stinking warrants!

  • I'm shocked that... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by David Hume ( 200499 )

    [a]n alert, either an exclamation point or an unlocked padlock, was sent to the phones in question.

    We'll probably see the standard privacy (natural, fundemental, pre-existing) rights vs. untilitarian (what if the terrorists have a nucclear weapon? / are going to kill 10,000 hostages?) posts.

    However, I'm just amazed that Russia issued such a warning... unless, as a matter of software determinism, they couldn't turn off the encryption without turning sending the warning.

    A bug, or a feature?

  • hmmmm

    How would we all feel if they started doing this in the U.S./Canada/U.K./please don't flame me I can't list everybody?

    In the U.S. at least the Patriot act would certainly allow for it (though the courts may not see it that way if it went to trial)

    It was at least nice of the Russians to let the terrorists know that the encryption was off. It is important to be considrate even in times of crisis.

  • Polite KGB (Score:5, Funny)

    by retto ( 668183 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:50PM (#6405011)

    I hope Ashcroft doesn't get any ideas from this. We may wind up getting little text alerts on our cell phones when the Bill Of Rights is, and is not, in affect.

    Civil Rights On....Civil Rights Off...Civil Rights On...Civil Rights Off...

  • GSM encryption is unsafe anyway (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lylum ( 659581 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:50PM (#6405012)
    As proven by the German CCC [jya.com]
    • Maybe but turning it off means saving a bit of time, don't you think?

    • Close but no cigar.

      The CCC stunt makes it possible to clone your SIM-card in the case where your operator have chosen to use an algorithm called COMP128. (It enables you to extract Ki from the SIM-card) but requires you know the PIN-code and have access to the card since it is a chosen plain-text attack that requires in average 100000 16 byte data words.

      Ki is a 16 byte secret key known to the SIM-card and to your home operator. In the GSM system session keys are transferred from the operator to the SIM

  • Polute to the extreme? (Score:5, Funny)

    by geek ( 5680 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:56PM (#6405039)
    "At least the Russian has the courtesy to warn all their phone users that this was going on"

    Yo Al Qaeda, we'll be listening to your phone calls on September 16th from 4am to 5am. Just FYI, so go about your day as usual.

    Just brilliant isn't it? Next we'll be mailing crack houses letters informing them of the raid 3 weeks later.

  • Overt versus covert (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ghoser777 ( 113623 ) <fahrenba&mac,com> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:00PM (#6405056) Homepage
    I'm wondering if there's anything proventing the ex-KGB from doing this eavesdropping without doing this type of warning. The interesting thing in this policy is that it lulls people into thinking that they know overtly when they're being monitored, which may keep people from wondering when they maybe monitored covertly i.e. without a friendly reminder.

    Matt Fahrenbacher
    • you babble a lot about over and covert surveillance, matt---

      I suspect you are really an undercover 'black op' agent of the UN, lulling us into believe that the system of control is really that simple.

      All of your conspiracy theories probably pale in comparison to the truth
      You think you know what the matrix is?

      Offtopic:Gimme a call sometime, you bum; we haven't talked in a while.

  • This is suspicious (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ugen ( 93902 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:09PM (#6405076)
    The russian authorities have a law (SORM) which requires any communications provider to have special equipment tapped by FSB. This law is well implemented and therefore FSB has access to all phone conversation regardless of the encryption.

    The true purpose of this action is any one of the following in order of highest to lowest probability:

    1) Draw public attention to the bombing/terrorist act and drum up support for whatever it is the government is planning next. Good way to do it as anyone and their dog carries a cell phone. Bad way to really tap conversations since now everyone knows they are being tapped.

    2) Draw a lot of attention to current interior minister Gryzlov and his tough and honest men tactics (that and the current cleaning of "dishonest" policement from less important police units). He's probably getting promoted to
    head up some political party so that will help.

    3) Put the terrorists/chechens/whoever on the run - scare them etc. This sure is a big dynamite in a small pond though - so i doubt it.

    4) Have other units not equipped with SORM uplink do the tapping, using scanners or some such. Unlikely since GSM even when unencrypted still can't be listened in on without expensive equipment. I doubt this one even more, but i had to put it here for the sake of balanced options:)
    • Last I heard, SORM compliance was variable. Not only did the provider have to grant the facilitz of making a tape, they also had to pay for a network connection back to the FSB.

      Many ISPs have started compliance but then just stalled indefinitely. The same for the mobile networks. In any case, if you want to be really secure, just give the FSB full access to a high bandwidth data stream as they lack the equipment to analyze this.

      This is essentially a publicity seeking move to show that the Government is

  • Let's think laterally for a minute here. The point of this may not be to listen to cellphones at all.

    By announcing publicly that they're going to be tapping everyone's cellphone for the next day or two, they will have denied Al-Queda or whomever it is they are worried about the ability to make secure phonecalls. So maybe, if the organisation was about to pull a terrorist attack, they wouldn't be able to coordinate their actions and would have to abandon the attack. Alternatively, maybe the point of the exercise is that the people of concern would be forced to use alternative, more vulnerable means of communication (landlines or face-to-face meetings).

    What do you guys think?

  • So does that mean... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phorm ( 591458 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:17PM (#6405087) Journal
    That my phone has the ability to work in encrypted and non-encrypted mode? Does the phone automatically join the non-encrypted session without warning, or will it balk?

    Really, it would be a good idea to have some sort of *privacy off* icon or something like that on most phones (I think some Nokias I've seen have this).
  • I don't see what gives them the right to spy on consumers. Do consumers have the right to spy on the government?

  • Symbols... (Score:3, Informative)

    by FRiC ( 416091 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @11:11PM (#6405263) Homepage
    So that's what the exclamation and unlocked padlock symbols mean. Whenever I go to China my phones always show those symbols and no one knows what they meant. I guess someone's eavesdropping.
  • It's about localization of calls, not eavesdropping I'd think.
  • Reminds me of a quote:

    What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly. It would be strange indeed if so celestial a thing as freedom should not be highly rated. -Thomas Paine

  • Whethey they can eavesdrop or not, it doesn't matter. Terrorists have their own "word subtitutions". They can speak a whole fscking hour of attack strategies and the eavesdropper (listener) would think they're discussing something about Barbie dolls. The government knows this, so there must be another reason for informing the public.
  • "At least the Russian has the courtesy to warn all their phone users that this was going on. Not sure what the standard FBI procedure is on something like this..."

    Or another way to look at it--
    Yes, at least they have the courtesy to inform the terrorist of their tactics.

  • No warning needed in GSM (Score:5, Informative)

    by Vendekkai ( 121853 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:37AM (#6405618)
    At least the Russian has the courtesy to warn all their phone users that this was going on

    No courtesy or warning is needed. GSM handsets automatically display the no-encryption icon when OTA (Over The Air) security is turned off by the operator.

    V

  • Same here in Estonia (Score:2, Insightful)

    by smkldr ( 611734 )
    The situation is quite the same here in Estonia, the unwilling former Soviet republic. All three GSM operators are required by law to provide equipment that allows the defence police to tap into any phonecall. Until recently this was simply a legal requirement, but at this point all three (if I'm not mistaken) have actually purchased and set up these systems. The legal side of listening to a specific phonecall is a completely separate matter.

  • Looks like FUD (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Vitus Wagner ( 5911 )
    I'm sitting just now in my office in the center
    of Moscow, and my phone doesn't display "No encryption" alert. It was so during Nord-Ost musicle hijacking, but not now.

    BTW, it is not very comforting to think that
    somebody in the same bus with you might carry
    2 kilo TNT bomb, which would explode when somebody
    send SMS to it.

    Latest bomb in Moscow was apparently done
    via some remotely controlled ignition and
    explode when they tried deactivate it.

  • I doubt notification in the U.S. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Quila ( 201335 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @05:12AM (#6406212)
    Wasn't a main point of the PATRIOT act that providers of any communications couldn't notify the suspect if eavesdropping was occuring? Turning off encryption would be as good as admitting that, so it's probably illegal to notify.

  • Old Russian Adage... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tspauld98 ( 512650 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @06:16AM (#6406315)
    Funny, this reminds me of a joke that a Russian friend told me...

    Both of us are of the age that we grew up during the Cold War and remember what it was like having nukes pointed at each other day and night...

    Anyway, we were on the phone and the connection was really bad. At one point, we heard a click similar to someone picking up the phone. So, Dmitri paused and said, "Wait a second..." After a few seconds, he began to speak again and I asked what had happened. He explained that, in Russian, it is considered polite to pause the conversation when you hear the FSB changing the tapes recording your conversation. :)

    I laughed my ass off.... Yes, people, I'm now ass-less....

  • I used to hate the Russian Intelligence agencies (Score:3, Funny)

    by nightsweat ( 604367 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @08:29AM (#6406710)
    I used to hate the Russian intelligence agencies.

    But they kind of GRU on me.

  • Are they thick? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Crazy Viking ( 230066 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:07AM (#6407299)
    There is no need to turn off the encryption to listen in on calls. They can just use the Lawful Intercept feature which is a built-in in all mobile phone networks. All they need (in most countries) is a court order to enable it. I appreciate that turning off encryption on all calls would enable them to listen in to the calls much more easily, but honestly, how much manpower have they allocated to deal with the tapping of all these phones in that 24 hour window? Do they REALLY believe that this aids them in their investigative efforts?

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