Court-approved telephone wiretaps and a listening device placed in the restaurant by government agents recorded more than 3,000 telephone calls.

Judge Jackson likened the phenomenon to the federal prosecution of drug traffickers, who are repeatedly caught as a result of telephone wiretaps.

He said the raids ended a 17-month undercover investigation of municipal corruption that included telephone wiretaps and other covert surveillance.

Like telephone wiretaps, such tools can be used to reconstruct the activities of a computer user as if a videotape were made of his computer display.

There, in a cold conference room, Mr. Siminovsky was presented with evidence collected from telephone wiretaps, according to lawyers and others involved in the case.

More recently than 1995, an illegal telephone wiretap was found installed in a national lab.

It was responsible for intelligence, counter-intelligence and government electronic security, including telephone wiretaps.

They wanted a strong degree of judicial oversight, the kind of permission required of investigators who want a full-scale telephone wiretap.

According to transcripts of the Italian telephone wiretaps, the two men actually struck a deal.

In an interview, the judge likened the phenomenon to drug traffickers caught on telephone wiretaps.