Pellicano Trial: Your Phone May Be Tapped

Things have definitely picked up here at court. The F.B.I. computer expert was finally allowed to leave the stand after enduring only a few more rounds from Mr. Pellicano. Mr. Pellicano seemed to use the rest of his cross examination to establish that it was Mr. Pellicano and not Mr. Edwards, who really knew about how to use Telesleuth. He seemed to want the jury to know that he was the computer genius and that when it comes to wiretapping, the F.B.I. is filled with a bunch of amateurs. Good to know...

Now, we're learning just how easy it is for someone at the phone company to wiretap our phones. All they really have to do is punch in a couple of codes to access phone numbers, addresses, credit information (dress size and weight) and then when they're all finished getting our information, they just pretend they made an error. According to David Lopes, the area manager of asset protection who investigates all kinds of illegal conduct by phone company employees, it's relatively easy for an employee to access our private information and then just pretend that they were "helping a customer." This morning we got a look at an employee doing just that. Mr. Saunders had Mr. Lopes take a look at some business records that purported to show an SBC employee, Teresa Wright, checking out information on Bo Zenga (around the time of his lawsuit against Brad Grey), Anita Busch (when she was writing for the NY Times about Michael Ovitz) and everybody's favorite Pellicano victim, Johnny Friendly (more commonly known as Sly Stallone.)

HAVE TO RUN BACK INSIDE....MORE TO COME INCLUDING TESTIMONY BY HOLLYWOOD MANAGER FRED DEMANN.

Read all of HuffPost's coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Comments

[PierreLeClerke]

When our criminal enterprise executive branch is subcontracting data gathering on the general population, it is quite naive for anyone to believe this is not a primary tool in the fight to stay ahead commercially and politically. Information has value to those that have access to it. Accounting 101.
Join U.S. April 19th in Philadelphia's Independence Hall to commence a Constitutional Convention and ABOLISH this government.

[LivingStardust]

I once worked for a telecom company. There was no control in that corporation. None. The most dysfunctional place I've ever seen. And that comes from someone with intimate knowledge of how dysfunctional our legal system has become. They will abuse you and your information as long as they are in the corporate format. They should all be nationalized and their current boards charged for violating our civil rights.

[diamndpeace]

With Pellicano allegedly commanding these huge fees for wiretaps, the Hollywood phone companies and the FBI should audit the phone company employee rosters to see what kind of interesting career transitions have occurred to bring people to work for the phone company. For example if someone worked for the National Enquirer for a while and now works for a Los Angeles area phone company, that would be interesting to see what they have been up to. Or if someone worked in private investigations or spent time as a paprazzi or worked in security or for the local police and now worked for the phone company. The phone companies should be so embarrassed by the breach of the public trust that has already happened in Los Angeles that scrutinizing the work of employees coming from industries that profit from digging up dirt would be sensible if not priority number one. The money is too high, the temptation is too great and the appearance of impropriety will be hard for the phone companies to afford, particularly after all of the lawsuits that will occur after this trial.