Furthermore, in 1986 Congress extended criminal wiretapping laws to cover Internet transmissions. We checked that out. Tapping a telephone line is fairly simple. All it takes is a handset. That is the device that looks like a telephone that you see telephone service personnel carry on their belts.
Handsets cost a couple of hundred dollars, if that.
There are also more sophisticated techniques for intercepting land wire telephone conversations. There are antennae-like devices that can be concealed in trucks, and when parked outside target buildings can capture vibrations emitted by telephone lines inside the building. Land line telephone conversations can be scrambled, making a sessful tap more difficult. Hardly anyone does that. Consequently, an unlawful intercept of a land line phone conversation is not a waiver of the attorney client privilege as to that conversation.