tapping method unmentioned

In all the articles that I've seen posted, and in the grumbling done about the advancement of government regulated cryptography, I haven't seen much mentioned on *how* the government would go about collecting a certain exchange. Pardon me if I'm missing something key here, but wasn't there some bill circulating in the legislature that proposed that phone co's build tappability into the newer non-copper phone system? Is the phone co's cooperation on this issue part of a bargain to exclude such capability from the system (yeah, right) or is the government focusing on this issue now because it has already accomplished what it wants in other areas of privacy (read: tapping) ~