Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım has said the government plans to increase penalties for illegal wiretapping in order to dissuade people from bugging private phone conversations in violation of the law...
āWith the passage of this draft legislation the punishment [for illegal wiretapping] will be increased three-fold. The punishments will not be suspended or commuted to monetary fine. People who are found guilty of illegal wiretapping will be sentenced to a jail term of two to five years. There is no other method to put a stop to the illegal wiretapping paranoia,ā Yıldırım told Todayās Zaman. The wiretapping of telephone conversations is a highly controversial issue in Turkey. Many believe the police as well as the military and other security agencies frequently bug peopleās phone lines to detect security threats. (more)
For those of you unfamiliar with the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment is in place to guard citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Not that it really stops the government from doing so or anything but they try and it is for our own safetyā¦ most of the time. But Airport security and those scans can be quite a problem, what with all the radiation and all from the scanners etc. so aside from lead underwear and radiation blocking fig leaves on your delicates, another company has come up with Forth Amendment T-shirts with the prints in metallic dye that will show up on scans. (
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The conversations of Bulgarian army generals and top officers have been secretly wiretapped.
The scandal broke out after
a spy cam hidden in a watch was found in one of the rooms of Sofia Shipka hotel, owned by the Ministry of Defense. The military prosecution has already been alerted about the attempted espionage and its experts are now working to find out if secret records had been made and who might have used them.
The computer surveillance system installed in room 222 of the Shipka hotel has been receiving information from 69 spy cameras installed in different recreation centers of the Bulgarian army across the country, while most of the military clubs in Bulgaria have been wiretapped under the pretext of higher security.
“I admit ordering the watch with the spy cam in it, but the gadget has never been used,ā said Nikolay Markov, former security officer at the Recreation Centers Department with the Ministry of Defense. (more)
A former director of Colombiaās central intelligence agency, under investigation in an eavesdropping and illegal surveillance scandal has been granted political asylum in Panama.
Maria del Pilar Hurtado a lawyer headed the Department of Administrative Security (DAS) in Colombia, from August 2007 2008. She is one of four former directors of the agency in charge of the Colombian intelligence services, being investigated for their roles in a scheme of eavesdropping and illegal surveillance of judges, opposition politicians, journalists and human rights workers. (more)
