Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Police recording system can eavesdrop on hundreds of calls

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Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 03:12:59 -0500

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Police recording system can eavesdrop on hundreds of calls

By Eyewitness News

Feb 20, 2003, 4:02pm

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) _ The telephone recording system at the Public Safety Complex was a powerful and sophisticated device that could eavesdrop on hundreds of telephone lines and store thousands of hours of conversation, according to the company that made it.

The Total Recall system was made by Expanets of Englewood, Colo. Company spokeswoman Christy Weiner told The Providence Journal that users also could access the system from anywhere in the world on the Internet, by way of a Web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape.

Users could then search through recorded calls, monitor live calls and switch various features of the system on or off.

City officials and investigators have declined to describe the system or to say who had access to it and what, if any, calls had been recorded, according to the Journal.

The secret taping of phone conversations by a third party is a felony.

Police Chief Dean Esserman discovered the recording system last week after a mayor-ordered internal review of the Communications Department operations.

The recording system has been removed and the Attorney General’s office is conducting a criminal investigation.

Documents used to solicit companies to install the system offered the first glimpse at its capability.

The documents obtained by The Providence Journal showed construction was already in progress on the Public Safety Complex, when planners sought bids in the summer of 2001 for telephone and computer equipment.

On Jan. 8, 2002, after all bids had been opened and reviewed, then-Communications Director Manuel M. Vieira wrote to Alan Sepe, acting director of public property. Vieira told Sepe the contract should go to Expanets, even though three other companies had offered lower bids.

Though Vieira signed the letter directing city officials to proceed, the documents do not show who decided to add the recording system after the bidding process had begun.

Vieira could not be reached by the Journal for comment.

Weiner, of Expanets, said investigators from Rhode Island had contacted the company, which offered help deciphering any information recorded by the system.

© Copyright 2002 STC Broadcasting Inc

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