112 Everyday, Pillai, the sole authoriser of such Central wiretaps, receives hundreds of fresh written requests for electronic surveillance. A majority of requests emanate from the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Income Tax Department, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (dri) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Additional requests also come from state agencies who need the home ministry's permission to intercept phones in Union Territories. Law enforcement agencies can tap a phone without the home secretary's permission for the first week. Thereafter, a tap can be done only after a strong case is made. In reality, a weak argument works. Crime and terrorism are the familiar rationales but they leave the door open for multi-level abuse. Each state has an average of 2,000 to 3,000 phones under surveillance at any given time. Phone tapping is uncoordinated. Various agencies monitor numbers in silos. At times, a single number is simultaneously being monitored by multiple agencies of the state and Centre. The proliferation of off-theshelf sophisticated listening devices and absence of a Central database compound the problem. Except in certain special laws, wiretaps can be used only as corroborative evidence in courts. But it is so easily done with such little effort that it becomes the first recourse for law enforcement authorities. With an increasing reliance on phone tapping as operational tools, the surveillance society is only set for consolidation. Activists argue for a US-like system where only a judge authorises wiretaps after reviewing the evidence. "Civil liberties are far too important to be left to the executive or the home secretary. There is every danger of wrong permissions being given out, resulting in indiscriminate tapping," says former chief justice Rajinder Sachar.