An impressive array of electronic equipment is available for use in invading your privacy. Practically none of it is marketed for this purpose, but it takes only a little thought to realize that most of these devices can be used for illegal bugging and/or wiretapping.

Most toy stores carry inexpensive walkie-talkies that are ideal for a quick and dirty room bug. The eavesdropper simply tapes down the transmit button and hides the walkie-talkie in the target room.

Another inexpensive room bug is the "FM Baby Monitor". Not only can mom use it to keep an ear on her little one, but since it has a transmit range of about three blocks, it makes a nifty bug also.

One of the most common telephone bugging attacks is the hookswitch bypass. When a telephone has been bypassed, it becomes "hot on hook". This means that even though the phone is hung up, it intercepts all room conversation and passes them down the phone line to a listening post. The cost of components to perform this little trick? About 45 cents.

We have barely scratched the surface of what is readily available for bugging, wiretapping and video surveillance. In the following pages we present some equipment that can help you detect and locate these threats to your privacy. Our equipment is geared toward detecting and/or locating commercially available bugs and wiretaps planted by your friends, lovers or business associates. If your problem is with the CIA or other three letter agencies, our equipment probably won't be of much help to you. We also recommend that you educate yourself about the techniques of bugging and wiretapping to help you understand the threat.