The eavesdropped world.

Are you sure that you’re not being bugged while reading this text? Maybe your favorite phone has been tapped to record every single word you say. Who’s done that? You don’t know, do you? You’d better wonder if you’re not in someone’s bad books. 

The conspiracy theory

Is it a joke? Or a conspiracy theory? Those who claim that we were, we are, and we will always be eavesdropped are considered to be insane, aren’t they? Or at least they’re said to be the conspiracy theorists. The possible grain of truth included in those theories stems from wrong interpretation of the facts or even more often from essentially unjustified presumptions. These believers will always find a place in a cabaret or a madhouse. So, how should we explain the statement of Zbigniew Brzeziński, ex-advisor of the president of the USA, who says: ‘The technocratic era will be based on increase in the social control. This kind of society will be dominated by the ruling èlite which has no regard for traditional values’? How good does the second sentence sound? Is the society, which shows complete disregard of the traditional values, so greedy that it treats the rest as slaves throwing their way around? So does this control apply to all or just the rebels? 

The formal government institutions would be, in conformity with the law, enabled to control and to eavesdrop the citizens, moreover secret spies would be devised. 

There are two kinds of espionage. The first one is presented in books or movies. The second one is the genuine one. The first one is connected with car crashes and beautiful women. The real spying consist of digging through the garbage, planting bugs in someone’s flat and many hours spent with headphones on. The taps are installed everywhere: in your shoes, phones, pens. They quietly wait for you under your bed or desk. 

The history of eavesdropping includes incidents with jealous wives and ‘thrifty’ politicians. The crucial moment was the famous Watergate scandal, when it has turned out that everybody can eavesdrop. The case came out into the open thanks to two Washington Post journalists: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The authorities were those who eavesdropped and stayed beyond any suspicion. The incident has shocked the whole USA. It has turned out that several people connected with president Nixon used the ex-workers of the secret service to eavesdrop the campaign headquarters of the Democratic Party. Moreover the case of the burglary to the headquarters in Watergate complex, Washington has been exposed during the election campaign in 1972.

The Watergate scandal implied the end of Richard Nixon’s political career. He resigned from office under the threat of impeachment in August 1974. His successor, Gerald Ford approved a document a month later, which declared amnesty for Nixon concerning all offences he had or might have committed as the president. Due to the scandal 40 high ranking public officials were accused or arrested including John Mitchell the director of the Committee to Re-elect the President and Charles Colson. Richard Nixon resisted on his innocence till the end. 

The Polish Watergate

Wiretapping has been used in Europe as well. It’s worth noticing that this time the authorities were those who were wiretapped. The well-known scandal of the tapes of truth, where the then Prime Minister of Hungary Ferenc Gyurcsany unaware of being recorded admitted to lying to his electors, had a widespread impact. The consequences of the tap were so grave that the long protests of citizens became ferocious. 

There was a time when Rydzyk’s and Oleksy’s tapes were a popular topic in Poland. And the most renowned recordings brought the famous incident about which caused the fall of the Miller’s government and the beginning of SLD failure. The Michnik’s scandal took place when Adam Michnik recorded Lew Rywin who offered a bribe while visiting him and was later proven guilty. 

According to the official data from the June report Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet, the police and other authorities applied for ordering operational supervision and inspection for 6723 citizens and the court complied with 6453 cases. It isn’t terrifying at all, is it? Are you sure? According to the report of the European Commission, Poles are the most surveillanced nation in the European Union. The authors of the report state that the police along with secret services have analyzed thoroughly citizens’ billings more than 1 300 000 times. Even if billings of the same people were looked through more than once it’s easy to see how many citizens were actually inspected. 

There are nine institutions which eavesdrop us. These are: the Military Police, the Border Guard, Government Protection Bureau, the Internal Security Agency, Foreign Intelligence Agency, the Counterespionage Services, military intelligence, General anti-corruption bureau, the Revenue Intelligence. What’s more, the amount of bugs has increased since last year. 

The situation in Europe is not getting any better. While the clerks are still using the phone billings, the potential terrorists have already switched to the modern technologies such as free Skype. 

Several years ago the Italian police took the initiative of push the possibility of recording the conversations held via this communicator. The case was send to the highest resorts of the European Union, but has so far ended in failure. 

The invisible microphone

According to the historians the bugs using the radio waves were available soon after World War II and the Polish secret services owned them in the fifties. Nowadays the GSM technology solutions are being broadly used. 

There are many ways of eavesdropping, even the person who is not an expert on electronics would be able to construct a tap. One should only find a suitable instruction film to build a simple device using the radio waves. But why should we bother? Dozens of companies offer all that’s necessary to record the crucial words. Sale of the devices is legal, isn’t it? Only eavesdropping is forbidden. Since the bugs are available it’s obvious that there are also various devices to drown them. The online shops offer the necessary equipment-everything, depending on what we need. Their good stock includes devices generating low tones which are inaudible, but despite that decoding the records from bugs is impossible. The other kinds of appliances drown the GSM signal and therefore the mobile phones and cameras can’t work properly within 50 meters in this frequency band. Unfortunately the privacy costs dear, most of the drowning appliances cost at least few hundred and the prices of the most expensive ones reach few thousand. 

Speaking of the GSM, it’s worth underlining that the mobile phone connections aren’t safe any longer. A short time ago the algorithms used to code them were really outdated, today they would be 23 years old. Two years after the effective breaking of the codes by a German computer scientist the coded were updated. But will this be enough? Human creativity knows no bounds. In 2010 during the Def Con Conference Chris Paget showed new method of intercepting phone conversations which only requires a laptop, appropriate program and some knowledge. The total cost of constructing this device reached only 1500$. It’s easy to see that it’s available to the general public. 

The legal question of accessing the information from mobile network operators are still unregulated, hence the services can easily find out when and who have we talked with. The text messages are even worse. It’s unofficially said that the operators are partially archiving the messages, thus they can also pass on the data to the third party-all that makes this way of communication rather fear arousing. The most careful ones can follow Julian Assange and change their phone number after every single call. 

The scandal

When the opportunities of eavesdropping are broadening we can no longer be sure of being more lucky than the British. The scandal with the News of the world has exposed new facts. It has turned out that the bugs are also planted by the journalists, who used to be adored for their honesty. Jacek Mojkowski from the Focus has noticed that the system in Great Britain was ‘a toxic agreement between the police, media and politics’ - even though the Scotland Yard knew about the bugs didn’t launch the investigation, as many of their employees had worked for the ‘NoTW’ before. So the last resort for the citizens longing for the truth has vanished. The journalist may have learnt the shocking actions from the Deutche Telekom, which received the ‘Big Brother Award’ in 2008 for disturbing the press freedom after catching their employees eavesdropping the journalists’ conversations. Anyway, passing over the offenders, we can’t be sure if the information about us will not be given to the third party. 

Overhearing the ordinary Mr Brown regardless of his mother country is becoming easier. The increasing control doesn’t cause neither anxiety nor protests. Considering the recent events in Norway we may expect ideas for even stronger control. But is that right?