Wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping

Electronic eavesdropping utilizes electronic devices to covertly listen to conversation, whereas wiretapping is the traditional term for interception of telephone conversations. The word is no longer restricted to communications travelling by wire and contemporary wiretaps are more commonly placed on radio links or inside telephone office.

At common law, eavesdropping was considered a nuisance. ‘Eavesdropping’ as William Blackstone defined it, meant to listen under walls or window, or the eaves of house, to hearken after discourse, and thereupon to frame slanderous and mischievous tales’.

Before the advent of electronic communication, people could easily avoid eavesdroppers by ensuring that nobody else was around during their conversations.

Eavesdropping and wiretapping can both legal and illegal. When legal, it is carried out by authority of a warrant issued in accord with the law.

The advent of electronic communications was soon flowed by the invention of recording and transmitting devices that enabled new and more sophisticated forms of eavesdropping than overhearing a conversation with naked ear.

Electronic eavesdropping technology is highly developed to the point where countermeasures have not kept up with the art of bugging.
Wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping