Can you wiretap or can you help me wiretap my employees or spouse?

No. While both Texas and federal law authorize the monitoring (and recording if desired) of any conversation to which you are a party or have the permission of a party, wiretapping or room bugging is a federal and state felony. There is a mixed bag of law as to whether an employer may tape record or monitor his employees' conversations. Contact your attorney for an opinion on this matter. However, if an employee signs an authorization and the monitoring of the conversation is simply to provide quality control, then it may be authorized. Even wiretapping your child or a person in your house is a crime. It is not a question of who owns the phones because ultimately the local exchange carrier owns the phone lines. It is a privacy issue and one which the government has signaled its intent to protect. Elsewhere in this section we discuss that it is permissible to covertly tape record conversations to which you are a party. Such records can be very useful in litigation. Yet at all times, you need to comply with the law because trying to admit a tape obtained illegally may subject you to both criminal and civil prosecution.