Deutsche Telekom admits bugging the phones of its top management – and then denies that it listened to the calls!

Hit fairly and squarely between the eyes by irrefutable evidence that the carrier had hired the services of an outside company (alleged to be the Berlin branch of a "consultancy company") illicitly (and, in all probability, illegally) to snoop on its staff, the company board has admitted and confirmed that it has routinely and determinedly intercepted hundreds of thousands of telephone calls by, from and to senior executives and board members. The telco also bugged the phones of business journalists. It is alleged that the bulk of the interceptions took place over the course of 2005 and 2006.

DT, having been comprehensively caught out, is spinning the story like mad and, whilst admitting that two "initiatives" "Operation Clipper" and "Operation Rheingold" (how very Wagnerian) were surveillance exercises of massive scope, is claiming that the unlawful wire-tapping was set up purely to identify "leaks and potential leaks" (don't you just love those weasel words "potential leaks"?) of company information.

The telco also claims that whilst information about who made calls to whom, when and for how long was logged and reported on up the command chain, the spies didn't actually listen to any of the conversations. What utter BS. If you believe that.....

Sources say that DT may also have intercepted email traffic.

DT's current CEO, Rene Obermann, who was not in post at the time the illegal surveillance took place says, "This would seem to be in breach of Germany's data protection laws. We are taking this very seriously.