A telephone line shunt for disabling incoming and outgoing calls to or from a telephone line. The device attaches to a single outlet or telephone such that the line is unavailable to devices attached to it from any other location. A shunt short circuits the ring and pitch lines of a conventional telephone line to inhibit a dial tone for outgoing calls while simultaneously creating the appearance of a line busy status for incoming calls. The shunt is inserted into any standard telephone wall jack to inhibit line availability, and removed to restore line availability. The shunt can be implemented by a simple wire shunt embedded in a modified plug for an RJ-11 jack. Alternatively, the shunt can be controlled by activation switches on a wall receptacle, on a telephone hand set, and on a telephone/clock radio. An optional remote control allows switching of the shunt. The shunt control mechanism may also used a password system to control access to the shunt.