Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Sharp rise in bugging exposes Italians' dirty secrets to the public

Sharp rise in bugging exposes Italians' dirty secrets to the public
By Peter Popham in Rome
Published: 25 August 2005
Practically every public act in Britain today is recorded by CCTV cameras, 
but in Italy the ubiquitous form of surveillance is the bugged telephone.
The Eurispes think-tank has revealed that 30 million Italians between the 
ages of 15 and 70 has been bugged in the past 10 years. Their report says: 
"Every Italian family" has been touched by the phenomenon, "at least once." 
And the amount of bugging is increasing at blinding speed.
In the past five years, the government has paid ?1.25bn (Ł820m) to the phone 
companies, public and private, to tap customers' phones for them. In the 
same period the number of taps increased by 125 per cent over the preceding 
five years.
The intrusion does not stop at tape-recording the conversations. When 
investigators pursuing the misdeeds of the high and mighty catch a top 
banker or politician or gangster in flagrante delicto on the phone, they 
waste no time in releasing the transcripts to the press. If they are juicy 
enough, they make front- page news. In Italy, phone-taps are used in 
evidence.
At 12 minutes past midnight on 12 July, Antonio Fazio, the governor of the 
Bank of Italy, phoned Gianpiero Fiorani, chief executive of a small Italian 
bank, the Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI). The major Dutch bank ABN Amro had 
been trying to win control of Banca Antonveneta, Italy's ninth biggest bank.
As the head of the Bank of Italy, Mr Fazio, appointed for life in 1993, is 
supposed to maintain scrupulous impartiality in such affairs. Instead, it 
was strongly suspected that he helped to engineer a reverse takeover by BPI, 
to keep Banca Antonveneta in Italian hands.
The phone-tap, made public this month, seemed conclusive. "Did I wake you 
up?" Mr Fazio asks Mr Fiorani. "No, no." "Right: I've just signed it, OK?" 
"Ah, Tonino," Mr Fiorani says, "I'm overcome with emotion, I've got 
goosebumps ... I'd like to kiss your forehead."
Opposition politicians and Luca di Montezemolo, the head of the employers' 
organisation, have called on Mr Fazio to resign. With the evidence staring 
the country in the face, it is thought unlikely that he can hang on 
indefinitely.
It is an assault on privacy that one would expect the freedom-loving, 
tax-evading Italians to resent. But when the Prime Minister, Silvio 
Berlusconi, called for new controls to be put on phone-tapping, with jail 
terms of up to 10 years for those who leak transcripts, there was scant 
enthusiasm for the idea.
It is not merely the prurient delights of listening at important people's 
keyholes that checks opposition to phone-tapping. It is the widespread 
belief that bugging phones is often the only way for investigators, and the 
people, to find out some of what is really going on.
Practically every public act in Britain today is recorded by CCTV cameras, 
but in Italy the ubiquitous form of surveillance is the bugged telephone.
The Eurispes think-tank has revealed that 30 million Italians between the 
ages of 15 and 70 has been bugged in the past 10 years. Their report says: 
"Every Italian family" has been touched by the phenomenon, "at least once." 
And the amount of bugging is increasing at blinding speed.
In the past five years, the government has paid ?1.25bn (Ł820m) to the phone 
companies, public and private, to tap customers' phones for them. In the 
same period the number of taps increased by 125 per cent over the preceding 
five years.
The intrusion does not stop at tape-recording the conversations. When 
investigators pursuing the misdeeds of the high and mighty catch a top 
banker or politician or gangster in flagrante delicto on the phone, they 
waste no time in releasing the transcripts to the press. If they are juicy 
enough, they make front- page news. In Italy, phone-taps are used in 
evidence.
At 12 minutes past midnight on 12 July, Antonio Fazio, the governor of the 
Bank of Italy, phoned Gianpiero Fiorani, chief executive of a small Italian 
bank, the Banca Popolare Italiana (BPI). The major Dutch bank ABN Amro had 
been trying to win control of Banca Antonveneta, Italy's ninth biggest bank.
As the head of the Bank of Italy, Mr Fazio, appointed for life in 1993, is 
supposed to maintain scrupulous impartiality in such affairs. Instead, it 
was strongly suspected that he helped to engineer a reverse takeover by BPI, 
to keep Banca Antonveneta in Italian hands.
The phone-tap, made public this month, seemed conclusive. "Did I wake you 
up?" Mr Fazio asks Mr Fiorani. "No, no." "Right: I've just signed it, OK?" 
"Ah, Tonino," Mr Fiorani says, "I'm overcome with emotion, I've got 
goosebumps ... I'd like to kiss your forehead."
Opposition politicians and Luca di Montezemolo, the head of the employers' 
organisation, have called on Mr Fazio to resign. With the evidence staring 
the country in the face, it is thought unlikely that he can hang on 
indefinitely.
It is an assault on privacy that one would expect the freedom-loving, 
tax-evading Italians to resent. But when the Prime Minister, Silvio 
Berlusconi, called for new controls to be put on phone-tapping, with jail 
terms of up to 10 years for those who leak transcripts, there was scant 
enthusiasm for the idea.
It is not merely the prurient delights of listening at important people's 
keyholes that checks opposition to phone-tapping. It is the widespread 
belief that bugging phones is often the only way for investigators, and the 
people, to find out some of what is really going on.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article307991.ece

 In the past five years, the government has paid ?1.25bn (£820m) to the

beh in effetti, in europa piu che vagliare l'entrata della turchia,
dovrebbero dibattere se tenerci l'italia.
 
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 people, to find out some of what is really going on.
Chissa' tutto questo intercettare quanti crimini risolve, alla fine. Se
siamo all'avanguardia nelle intercettazioni e queste sono efficaci
dovremmo essere all'avanguardia anche nella risoluzione dei crimini.
-- 
"Che abbia voce o no, il popolo puo' essere sempre portato al volere dei
capi. È facile. Tutto quello che dovete fare e' dir loro che sono attaccati,
e denunciare i pacifisti per mancanza di patriottismo e in quanto espongono
il paese al pericolo. Funziona allo stesso modo in tutti i paesi."
(Hermann Goering) <<< Sig. heil!