UK - Anything divulged inside a building or a private car is potentially open to an extraordinary array of electronic bugging devices or telephone intercept systems. Bugging is a fine art, and the technology has leapt forward in recent years.
The electronic bug allegedly used by the police to eavesdrop on the conversation between Babar Ahmad, suspected of having links to terrorist organisations, and Sadiq Khan, his constituency MP, during a meeting in Woodhill prison in Milton Keynes, was probably the conventional type.
The basic form of bug requires someone to listen in from several hundreds yards away, or to have a recording system hidden nearby that can store many hours of conversation.
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 is place it covertly under someone’s desk. It’s like a miniature cellular phone. You can ring it from thousands of miles away, it answers silently and you can listen in on conversations. The GSM bug could be in an office in London but the person listening to the conversations could be in Australia.” (more)
