Recent attention has been fixed on President Donald Trump’s accusations that former President Barack Obama arranged for Trump Tower to be wiretapped.
But in reality, wiretapping is a practice that’s largely obsolete for modern surveillance, as the Guardian newspaper’s defense and intelligence correspondent Ewen MacAskill observes.
To begin, it’s a risky operation, as it involves an operative needing to physically enter a location to plant bugs or tamper with the landline phone. These bugs can be discovered, revealing the surveillance. And it isn’t as if landline phones are as common as they were in the days of the Cold War.
Quite simply, it’s safer and far easier to access a target’s mobile phone, which can be used as a listening device even when turned off. (President Trump’s use of an old, unsecured Android phone would put him at particular risk.)
It’s also possible to remotely access computers and laptops, even ones that are shut down. Indeed, hackers now can create the impression a computer has shut down, while it continues to run and even use its camera. To read the full article in the Guardian and gain insight into how easy it is to be spied on nowadays, click here. (Then hide all your electronics in the cellar immediately.)
—RealClearLife
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