"All telecom equipment has "legal intercept" hooks to allow full monitoring by law enforcement in whatever jurisdiction the devices are sold in." None of that

"All telecom equipment has "legal intercept" hooks to allow full monitoring by law enforcement in whatever jurisdiction the devices are sold in." None of that is in dispute and everyone of relevance knows it. However that's not the point I was making which is that at the highest level of intergovernmental spying things are different. Simply, sleeper backdoors are invisible to all but the perpetrator and they act stenographically when the perpetrator has the need. The technology may change but there's nothing new in this approach, it's centuries old and has a proven track record.