I live not too far away from Cheltenham, and I can confirm that the UK Government would have rather a hard job ever denying the existence of GCHQ. As you leave the M5 motorway at junction 11, taking the dual carriageway into Cheltenham, the signposts for GCHQ can't be missed. (Left at the second roundabout.) The building is visible to anyone driving into Cheltenham. (If you carry on towards the town centre for another mile or so, the Police HQ building has a rather impressive aerial on its roof, albeit comparable to other Police HQs.) It seems reasonable to believe that the various secret service agencies have reciprocal arrangements to tap each other's citizens. E.g. the American agencies tap the Royals' phones, then repeatedly rebroadcast the tapes using powerful transmitters, so they're almost certain to be picked up by some radio ham, or retired bank manager with a scanner, within a day or two. Steve Whitrow sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk