5,000 calls being tapped each day
On a single day, nearly 5,000 phone calls are being tapped by government agencies. Amidst reports of phone conversations of PR lobbyist Nira Radia, whose name has cropped up in the 2G spectrum row, senior government sources said that Radia’s phone tapping had been authorised by the government.
The reported conversations of Radia and several influential persons came to light since Radia’s phone was under surveillance, they said. The government can authorise phone tapping for sixty days which can be extended again if the need arises. The phone tapping by government agencies is done with the consent of the union home secretary.
Government sources said that such authorised phone tapping mostly consists of cases related to terrorism, hawala and economic offences.
“Sixty per cent of cases where phones are kept under surveillance by intelligence agencies are of persons with terror linkages, hawala operators and members of banned organisations while nearly ten percent cases relate to persons involved in various economic offences,” a senior government official said. Conversations of terrorists and insurgent outfits based in Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast and the banned CPI (Maoist) are mostly under the scanner of intelligence agencies.
“A lot of times the phone tapping is done for only 60 days. But when it involves persons who are facing any criminal case or are under the scanner of investigating agencies , their phones are kept under surveillance for a longer period,” the official said.
The sources said that emails are also being tapped by government agencies after getting the consent of the service providers.
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