this was on our news service today :-
Who’s listening in on the telephone? The latest figures on federal telephone bugging warrants show that 8969 have been issued in the three years to June 2005, with 2889 being granted in 2004-05. With some warrants covering more than 10 different telephone services and being in force for an average of more than seven weeks, that’s a lot of calls being monitored. And with 11 law enforcement agencies able to apply for interception warrants and a further five agencies able to access intercepted material, there’s also a lot of people listening.