Is Your Cell Phone Ratting on You?

Stealthy spy phones and powerful interceptors conjure images of James Bond's outfitter, Q.

Erik Larkin, Medill News Service

WASHINGTON--Just by looking at it, you'd think that the Meganet VME Spy phone XP was just your like a typical Siemens or Nokia cell. It uses the exact same case. It acts just like a regular mobile phone, too--you make and receive calls and send text messages in a normal fashion.

All's normal, that is, until the intelligence agent across town calls it, using a special code. You won't feel it vibrate, you won't hear it ring, in fact, you're not even using it. But now your phone is a bug, and the agent who called you can listen in on anything you say--on the phone or off-- to anyone.

But don't think you can buy your own VME Spy phone XP to torment your friends or track your wayward teen. Meganet, the phone's maker, envisions the buyer to be at least working for the FBI, if not a more secretive federal agency, according to Saul Backal, the company's CEO. Los Angeles-based Meganet develops hardware and software for businesses and consumers as well as the government, but this phone is meant strictly for real spies.

The phone does have some limits. Although an agent can listen in on any calls made to or from the Spy phone, it can only pick up conversations within 15 feet when it's in 'bug' mode. And one possible pitfall: How does the spy get the bad guy to use this special phone in the first place? Would a hardened terrorist blithely use one given him by a clean-cut man who says, "Happy Birthday! Here's a new phone?"

Interceptors and Other Devices

The VME Interceptor, another Meganet product, gets around that problem. A laptop controller and other parts sit in an innocuous case, about 12 inches square and four inches thick. A small external antenna, connected by wire to the case, can intercept up to eight simultaneous cell phone calls from as far away as six miles, depending on the signal strength.

"This is the Big Brother," says Backal.

Backal says his company's Interceptor has an advantage over existing FBI cell phone interception; it can decrypt calls on the fly and let an agent listen as a given call is recorded on a local hard drive. Currently, the FBI has to listen to captured calls back at a central office, according to Backal.

However, an FBI spokesman says the bureau does not agree with Backal's description of FBI wiretapping limitations, and that current wiretap laws that govern electronic surveillance do not put any such restrictions on cell phone interception.

Meganet also has a cell phone encryption system, which Backal says was recently deployed for an intelligence group within the Navy, as well as powerful jammers that can scramble any cell phone signal within a mile and a half. The jammers could be particularly useful for protecting soldiers against roadside bombs detonated by cell phones, like those often used by Iraqi insurgents, Backal says.

High-end high tech does not come cheap: a Spy phone ranges from $10,000-$15,000, while the Interceptor starts at $250,000 and can cost a cool $1 million. One can only imagine the bill to Q's department after attacks on James Bond blew up the British Secret Service's equipment.

A Surveillance Society?

The FBI would not comment on whether the bureau was considering buying Meganet's spy devices, but a spokesman said the bureau has a "continual interest" in staying abreast of the latest commercial technology.

For those who fear the new devices would give the government unprecedented power to spy on citizens, Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation says officials would still need court authorization to use Meganet's technology. The last available wiretap report from the U.S. Courts Web site, for 2003, says that judges authorized 578 wiretaps--502 of them for narcotics offenses--for federal criminal investigations in that year.

While Opsahl says Meganet's surveillance offerings are "just an advanced form of technology that's been available for wiretapping," he does acknowledge potential cause for concern about erosion of civil liberties.

"It's another step towards creating a surveillance society," he says.