Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A concealed listening or recording device connected to a communications circuit.
- n. The act of installing such a device.
- v. To connect a concealed listening or recording device to.
- v. To monitor (a telephone line) by means of such a device.
- v. To install a concealed listening or recording device or use it to monitor communications.
Wiktionary
- n. A concealed device connected to a telephone or other communications system that allows a third party to listen or record conversations.
- n. The act of installing such a device.
- v. To install or to use such a device.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. the act or event of tapping a telephone or telegraph line to get information surreptitiously.
- v. to tap{5} (a telephone or telegraph line) to get information surreptitiously; also, to obtain or record (information) by use of a wiretap.
WordNet 3.0
- v. tap a telephone or telegraph wire to get information
- n. the act of tapping a telephone or telegraph line to get information
Etymologies
- wire + tap (Wiktionary)
Examples
“John Sununu, R-N. H., and others that certain wiretap and record seizure provisions violate privacy rights.”
“An unwarranted wiretap is perfectly legal — so long as you go to the FISA court within 3 days after the fact.”
“From what I understand, the acutal process of apply for and recieving permission to wiretap is so slow, that by the time you got such permission, the opportunity would be gone.”
“Today it's John Ashcroft's Justice Department, also invoking "national security," that hopes to seize the phone records of Judith Miller and Philip Shenon of The Times, claiming that what amounts to a virtual wiretap is warranted by articles about Islamic charities and terrorism published nearly three years ago.”
“The word wiretap strikes fear in the hearts of everyone, even the innocent," said Brad Balter, who runs Balter Capital Management LLC, a Boston-based firm that allocates clients 'money to hedge funds.”
“Sorry – don’t have a problem with that. if a wiretap is actually “related to al Qaeda”, then there should be no problem getting a supoena.”
Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Baby Steps To Authoritarianism
“However, knowingly or not, the Brazilian people still refer to the old process - the "wiretap" - as it still exists.”
“Marc Ambinder notes that the federal government’s annual wiretap report — that’s Title III criminal wiretaps, not the foreign intel surveillance covered by FISA — is out, and the headline figure is that there was a 16 percent decline in wiretap orders over the previous year.”
“Saying that the process to get a wiretap is too slow, so don’t bother, is like saying waiting for a red light is too slow, so don’t bother.”
“If a wiretap was approved on December 5, 2007, for example, it legally can remain in place until December 5, 2008.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wiretap’.
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WF - list of EN back-formations
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_back-formations
aborigine, accrete, acculturate, admix, admixture, adolesce, adsorb, adulate, advect, aesthete, air-condition, anticline and 212 more...
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words
pointingstock, kibosh, turnspit, ant-bear, earthborn, pitter, infold, hayseed, stoker, prismatic, backcross, blizzard and 96 more...
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Amusing words
interesting words
bonce, furcate, tapioca, tillage, desalinate, garish, litmus, roadhog, azoic, haberdasher, imbroglio, polliwog and 802 more...
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MEC1 Lesson 115
aid, attourney, bachelor, blast, brawl, claim, county, crime-ridden, defendant, deny, despite, directory and 29 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wiretap.
bilby "Officers in Milan say organised crime, arms and drugs traffickers, and prostitution rings are turning to Skype in order to frustrate investigators. The police say Skype's encryption system is a secret which the company refuses to share with the authorities. Investigators have become increasingly reliant on wiretaps in recent years. Customs and tax police in Milan have sounded the alarm."
- David Willey, Italy police warn of Skype threat, BBC website, 14 Feb 2009. Feb 15, 2009