Something's bugging Nicole Kidman . Or rather someone.
Australian police are looking to get to the bottom of just who was responsible for planting an electronic surveillance device outside the Oscar winner's Sydney mansion.
According to Sydney's Daily Telegraph, the bug was found nestled in the road by the compound's security center not far from a car belonging to Kidman's head bodyguard, Neil McMaster, who was keeping an eye on her Darling Point home.
The 37-year-old actress' security team detected the device as part of a general sweep of her estate before she was due in town to prepare for her role in Eucalyptus, a romantic fable scheduled to film Down Under next month with fellow Oz residents Russell Crowe and Geoffrey Rush.
Authorities notified Kidman that the bug was intentionally placed there to eavesdrop on her convesations with her bodyguards. While police do not yet know the identity of the culprit, detectives are eyeing the usual suspects.
"At the time this device was found there were media paparazzi, if I may use that term, in the street," police inspector Grant Taylor told reporters Tuesday "She is undoubtedly concerned in regards to why this device may have been placed there and if she is the potential target of this device."
The newspaper reported that security cameras caught an unidentified man installing the device on Sunday.
"We have conclusive evidence that it was planted and this has been captured on video," McMaster told the Telegraph. "There is no doubt that any information that we were transmitting would have been heard."
Kidman's rep could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
While forensic investigators get busy examining the footage in hopes of ID'ing the eavesdropper, Kidman's father, Tony, appealed for people to respect his daughter's privacy.
"I'm very conscious of the fact that she's concerned that people will not leave her alone," he was quoted as telling the BBC. "She's here to make a film. She wants to promote Australia and she's almost a prisoner in her own home as a result.
"The people that pursue her for pictures--I'm not making any comment about that specific issue--in general I would be very pleased if people would just let her get on with her life," the elder Kidman continued.
This isn't the first time Nicole Kidman has been spied on. In 1999, paparazzo Eric Ford was convicted in Los Angeles of a federal wiretapping charge for using a modified radio frequency scanner to illegally intercept a 1998 cell phone call between Kidman and then hubby Tom Cruise.
Ford sold the tape to London's Globe tabloid, which published excerpts, including Kidman saying that their marriage was "hanging by a thread." Ford was sentenced to six months in a halfway house and fined $3,000.
If the Australian bugger gets caught, the perp faces charges ranging from trespassing to illegal use of a telecommunications device.
Kidman, meanwhile, is keeping busy. After Eucalyptus, she'll start production in the fall in Emma's War, in which she'll play a British aid worker who marries a Sudanese warlord. In between, she'll be promoting the Sydney Pollack political thriller The Interpreter, which costars Sean Penn and is due in theaters in April.
