talking in the phone

If you live in most, erm, developed countries, no, your phone conversations aren’t being recorded. Countries like Canada, France, Japan, and so on, have laws that prevent wire-tapping without a warrant, which has to be approved by a judge. It’s not simply a matter of someone being under investigation and the judge makes a split-second decision like Law & Order. There’s a process to it.

However, if you live in the US (and I’m not sure about UK anti-terrorism legislation, so I left it out above), the answer might be yes. In the US, the PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement and government espionage agencies (such as the CIA, NSA, and Homeland Security, along with the 12 or so other ones you probably don’t know about) to monitor any citizen’s conversations without a warrant. If you, or perhaps a family member, is in any position where they might be suspected of being a terrorist (say, they came back from a legitimate business trip to the Middle East, to a state that isn’t on friendly terms with the US?), then the answer may very well be yes, your conversations might be recorded by the government.

If you live in China, forget that you have these rights to privacy right now. You most likely don’t.