I am wondering if to anyone's knowledge LE ever busts incall locations when neither the SP or the Hobbyists are cooperating with LE? I have heard of tales where an SP works with LE to obtain leniency but what if neither side is cooperating? Keep in mind, that I'm not talking about the streetwalkers that hang out on the corner, but the upscale SP's that are reviewed on this site. For example, I'm wondering is it possible for LE to snatch a cell phone signal out of the air and tap into the phone call and discover the time and place of a scheduled meeting.... and bust the hobbyist as he is leaving the scene.
it is highly un probable. The technology probably exists to do things like this but I can't see them actually doing it. The scenario you described would not offer enough evidence in court that a crime took place.
Frankly, i think LE will stick to the tried and true method of having an undercover LE officer present as either the SP or the client. If they are going to make the effort to execute a sting of any kind they want to make sure it's not a waste of time and money. (ie...no case in court due to lack of evidence).
I believe with the older analog cellular phones it was easy for anyone with a scanner to pick-up the transmissions and listen in. But with digital cell phones, I don't believe that its possible anymore. Anyone with any technical background care to enlighten us?
"But with digital cell phones, I don't believe that its possible anymore."
If the phones weren't EASY to tap (not merely possible to tap) then government would have prevented them from becoming mainstream. A law (CALEA) was passed in 1994 that *REQUIRES* the telecom companies to not only allow tapping, but to go to extra trouble to build tapping capability into their networks.
As for who else (besides LE) is also capable of taking advantage of these extra built-in features, I can't say.
If you *really* need secure communications, the best thing to do is switch to exactly the kind of stuff the government has tried to suppress, and which has also been extensively peer-reviewed by people who have a pro-privacy agenda. PGP or GnuPG encrypted email comes to mind.
In practice, I doubt LE is sufficiently interested enough in the kind of activity that we discuss on this board, that they would bother tapping. And judges would be even less interested, so most such taps probably wouldn't have warrants and would just be illegal. Therefore, they'de mainly be used for fishing and deciding WHO to further investigate, rather generating actual evidence that would end up in a court.