Finally, allegations of cloak-and-dagger operations, leaked secret documents and the use of state spies for political purposes have transformed the tome of instructive political party logjam stories into a good, sleazy pulp novel.

The wiretaps under discussion — allegedly authorized by the Jiří Paroubek government in September in order to keep tabs on parties connected to organized crime investigator Jan Kubice's investigation into the possible organized-crime links of the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) — were legal, according to Justice Ministry officials. That element makes for one of the most bizarre aspects of the uproar.

One judge approved the wiretap on 46 phone numbers belonging to such people as Interior Minister and Civic Democratic Party (ODS) member Ivan Langer; Jan Vidím; Kubice himself, along with two other police agents; two journalists; a doctor and a Czech public radio office within the Chamber of Deputies.

One of the journalists, Aktuálně's Sabina Slonková, is a respected investigative reporter who was targeted for assassination by Foreign Affairs Ministry official Karel Srba in 2002 (fortunately, a hired would-be killer blanched at the thought of offing a woman and turned state's evidence). That she, of all people, should again come under state-ordered covert surveillance some 17 years after the fall of totalitarianism is an outrage that seems somehow even more gross than the civil-rights violations of the other subjects who were spied on.

How is it possible that, as the ODS insinuates, a political party could so easily obtain court-sanctioned wiretapping on such a shopping list of potential threats to itself? That's exactly what Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil wants to know. He has told Lidové noviny "the only way to go is to change the law, and I hope that the current events will contribute to making it possible."

What's more, he has said, the rules on wiretapping amount to "poor and incomplete legislation that does not correspond with the West European standards."

The Supreme State Attorney's office sounds disquietingly smug about the wiretaps, apparently satisfied that, in the words of spokesman František Tlapák, "The main thing is that there was no violation of the law as any wiretaps carried out in connection with the case were ordered legally."

Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, along with a host of others, has called for tough new rules for obtaining wiretap permission, something proposed by the ODS last year and that may well finally be passed, even in this deadlocked Parliament.

Pospíšil has proposed controls including a requirement to destroy the recordings obtained via wiretapping and to define a citizen's right to petition a court for its reasons in granting a wiretap.

Under the proposed ODS law, people should be allowed to know whether they have been bugged and whether their mail has been monitored. Illegal wiretapping would also be defined as a crime. The bill also would classify illegal wiretapping as a crime — something that is clearly a bare minimum of what's needed in any civil society.

Thus far, the only torrid detail the public has been spared is a printed transcript of the most steamy conversations picked up by bugging. It seems that even with the long history of state surveillance in this country, something sadly still in common use, we have yet to descend to the depths of supposedly more advanced Western democracies like Italy.