Defcon, the annual convention of hackers, crackers and phreakers was last week in Las Vegas. That is likely the impetus behind this story in the New York Times today.
While the story provides cause for alarm how many people have their phone lines tapped today? These same type of stories used to make the rounds in the hey day of cellphone growth, not maturity that we are in. If anything they go to support the growth of security related companies so I guess they have some value.