Control is exercised over a tap connection made for law enforcement agency monitoring of mobile station communications in response to an inter-exchange hand-off. Where such a tap connection does not yet exist at hand-off, pre-hand-off actions taken at the target exchange trigger an analysis of whether a party to that communication is marked for monitoring followed by an establishment of the tap connection at hand-off if the party is so marked. If the tap connection is already in place, pre-hand-off actions taken at the target exchange trigger an analysis of whether law enforcement agency monitoring of that communication is lawfully authorized with respect to the target exchange followed by instructing the anchor exchange to terminate the tap connection at hand-off if monitoring is not lawfully authorized.