I so hate to get involved in these types of discussions, but I do have first hand knowledge on some of what is going on and I will state it, even though I see already that many will dispute it.
1) Prior to ESS phone systems, the old relay banks did not work well for covert monitoring. It did require intervention from the phone company that controlled the switches. It was possible to bridge a line and have it monitored via another line, yet the best method was to connect to the physical line and monitor or record it from the pole or a hidden battery operated system close to the location. 2) ESS second generation allowed for field programming. Field programming allowed for the input of the telephone number followed by an action code that performed an operation. The operations ranged from, 'Termination', 'Redirection', or 'Bridging'. All under computer control. Many installers carried card with the code to do diagnostics such as, 'Impedance', 'Resistance', 'Ring Back' and so forth. 3) It was and I think for sure still possible to connect and set a number for automatic monitoring, auto recording is standard. The early systems involved humans to cut into the circuits, from ESS I thru today it is fully under the control of the computers. The phone companies will go to the plank and insist it is not possible, yet it was in the 80's and 90's, so why would it not be so now? The circuits to open a phone did exist (and maybe still do), but the monitoring of internal spaces is best handled by internal xmitters which have and can be passive for some 50 years now. Gone are the days of needing battery, and with no-knock, et.,al. the devices can and are planter with ease. -----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 2:03 PM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]: Is Big brother watching? I wrote: >Millions of people opened up telephones in the 1960s, including me. I might add that my father was something of an expert at spotting and disconnecting 1940s era listening devices, because he traveled around Russia during WWII on U.S. Embassy business. The only way to get room service at the hotels was to disconnect the bugs. That brought someone up from the front desk in minutes. As one person explained, the only way you could get them to come up and spray the real bugs was to disconnect the telephone bugs. Russian phone service was erratic back then, even though they invented the telephone. (According to Stalin, anyway). It sometimes took 10 minutes or a half hour to place a call. Once, a group of Americans were sitting talking about calling someone. After a while the phone rang, and it was the person they were going to call, who was on the line saying, "Hello? Hello?" Apparently, the KGB agent monitoring the conversation decided to save them some time, so he rang up the person they were going to call, got a connection, and then rang back to them. Along the same lines, Americans walking the streets were followed at a discrete distance by KGB handlers, "mainly for our own protection" as my dad put it. When my dad would stop to buy ice cream, he would sometimes buy two, hold one behind him and gaze off in the other direction. The KGB agent would come up and take the other, with a quiet "spasibo" (thanks). The cold war was not as dramatic, dangerous or even unfriendly as it was made out to be. American nationals caught as spies in Russia in the 1940s through to the end of the cold war were seldom harmed. When they would catch one of ours, we would go out and catch one of theirs, and trade. On the other hand, Russian citizens caught spying for the U.S. in Russia were tortured and killed. - Jed
