FBI Wiretaps Canceled for Non-Payment

grassy_knoll writes "Apparently, the FBI hasn't been paying the telcos for the wiretaps they've initiated, so the telcos have canceled the wiretaps. From the AP article linked: 'Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time. A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said. In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found.'"

Let's get this out of the way

[smooth wombat (796938)]

Nelson Muntz: Ha Ha!

There, it's been said. Let's move on.

Re:Let's get this out of the way

[Jonesy69 (904924)]

I see your "ha ha"

And raise you a "ha ha Fuckers!"

Oval Office Scene....

[mudetroit (855132)]

Dick Cheney walks into the Oval Office... "George Herbert Walker Bush! Do you see this phone bill! I guess we are just going to have to turn it off until you can afford to pay it yourself."

Re:Oval Office Scene....

[parkrrrr (30782)]

"George Herbert Walker Bush is my dad, you old coot!"

Ha Ha!

[Jeremiah Cornelius (137)]

Your little domestic scene is almost as funny as the bit included in the link:

Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

These are the cretinoids we are entrusting with Constitutional limitation of power, and enforcing the discretion of the courts?

The Bureau had "no comment."

Amnesty

[kneemoe (1042818)]

I can see it now, bunch of old crusty white dudes sitting around a boardroom "Well, if Congress won't get off their asses and grant us amnesty for warrant-less wiretapping we'll just have to get their attention now won't we"

In other news...

[LibertineR (591918)]

Without explanation, Telco Accounts-Receivable departments nationwide switch en-masse to VoIP.

Film at 11.

I wish I considered this good news

[gnick (1211984)]

When I hear wiretap and FBI in the same phrase, my knee jerk reaction is, especially recently, to attack the FBI. But this is awful. The US does occasionally use wiretaps for their intended purpose and, when they do, it's damned important that they be in-place and reliable. The telecoms are certainly within their rights to refuse service for non-payment, but what kind of a dysfunctional organization can't even pay their phone-bill on time? If my company's phone service was terminated, heads would roll.

Re:I wish I considered this good news

[cptdondo (59460)]

The same dysfunctional organization that has abused its warrantless wiretapping power?

Re:I wish I considered this good news

[gnick (1211984)]

No doubt. I'd like to see administrative action for screwing up the phone bill. I'd like to see arrests for warrantless wiretapping.

Re:I wish I considered this good news

[CrazedWalrus (901897)]

Dysfunctional? Try "inherently flawed".

Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

The same people who are watching you to throw you in jail are committing grand theft themselves. Who's watching the watchers, indeed.

Who's watching the watchers?

[Dr. Cody (554864)]

The Jews.

Re:I wish I considered this good news

[morbiuswilters (604447)]

You have to wonder how many fuckups like this are never reported. Then we hear that the government can't possibly protect us when they have to follow the law.

Re:

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Then we hear that the government can't possibly protect us when they have to follow the law.

Except that this is a very true statement.

The fallacy is believing that the government can protect you at all, or that it gives a shit either way.

Re:

[phoenixwade (997892)]

The telecoms are certainly within their rights to refuse service for non-payment, but what kind of a dysfunctional organization can't even pay their phone-bill on time? If my company's phone service was terminated, heads would roll.

Umm - maybe - I did a service call on a modem that wasn't functioning in a graphics department, about 12 years ago. The modem was fine, but the line it was connected to was dead.... After checking, the modem line had been disconnected for non-payment. It was just an over site. The only reason it stuck in my mind, was because of the company - it was Bell South, they'd cut themselves off... it was good for a laugh, still is, actually. Mistakes do happen, failure to pay a phone bill isn't dysfunctional..

Re:

[sgt_doom (655561)]

While I am normally hesitant to criticize the FBI - after all, wasn't it the crack and elite FBI Passport Recovery Team which was able to miraculously recover Mohammed Atta's passport from the wreckage of the WTC in the aftermath of 9/11/01? (No doubt Atta cranked down his cockpit window prior to crashing and conveniently threw out his passport.)

Having said that, I would question the efficacy of the FBI in any matter whatsoever - they have an long history for taking the credit for the achievements and un

Re:

[slackmaster2000 (820067)]

How about child porn rings? http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/03/18/net-porn.htm [usatoday.com]

You may not like anti-drug laws, and neither do I, but to assume that's all the FBI does is just plain wrong.

With all of *our* tax money that the telcos have sucked up over the years and their long history of unethical business practices, from monopoly to the impossible-to-read bill you receive every month, they can all suck it.

Child porn is a trumped up boogeyman.

[FatSean (18753)]

Sorry, it's like 'drugs' and 'terrorists'. I don't buy for a second that the supposed threat merits the incredible reductions in privacy and rights the current 'cure' requires.

Life isn't precious to this government, so all this crap about 'for the children' really means 'for more governmental power'. I think of all the poor Iraqi children now dead thanks to our governments' actions and I think "American parents need to step up...they've been mooching off of the tax code forever...wI give them money so they can have the children they chose to have...why must I keep giving up freedoms for them too?!"

I just can't get upset about US children being involved in porn, when there are children all over the world being straight up murdered. We have the blood of many many Iraqi children on our hands...let's fix that shit first.

I'd rather be raped than dead.

Re:

[oatworm (969674)]

Contrary to what you might think, the US government isn't engaged in some grand and nefarious conspiracy to expand its extra-constitutional powers. It is, however, engaged in a grand conspiracy to win elections. Simply put, a politician that declares him/herself "tough on child porn", promises "tough measures" and actually delivers them is much more likely to get reelected than a politician that appears "soft on child porn" because they dare to say, "Uh... the federal government doesn't have the right to

Apparently...

[uxbn_kuribo (1146975)]

Invading our privacy and violating the Constitution isn't nearly as profitable as one would think.

Re:Apparently...

[JustOK (667959)]

They invaded our privacy already and didn't have to pay for it. I think that's a good step toward profitability by lowering costs. Next step is an increase in regular consumer bills to offset the losses and to cover the eventual lawsuits. Result is, we pay to spy on ourselves.

Recommendations

[Sciros (986030)]

From TFA:

Fine's report offered 16 recommendations to improve the FBI's tracking and management of the funding system, including its telecommunication costs. The FBI has agreed to follow 11 of the suggestions but said that four "would be either unfeasible or too cost prohibitive." The recommendations were not specifically outlined in the edited version of the report.

11+4 = 15. HOLY CRAP just how bad IS the FBI at tracking numbers?? There's a whole recommendation missing there. It's probably the one that says "don't freaking steal thousands of dollars for personal use."

Re:Recommendations

[stranger_to_himself (1132241)]

'16. Do not follow this recommendation'.

Re:Recommendations

[sumdumass (711423)]

Maybe the missing suggestion is just still being evaluated and considered. I mean Following 11 suggestions and rejecting 4 says nothing to any that they haven't agreed to follow or rejected yet.

It might be different if they said something more like agreed to 11 but rejected the other four. But as if now, they have only made statements about 15 of the 16 suggestions and those statements were limited in scope.

Re:

[Sciros (986030)]

Well I was just joking. It could also be a typo in the article.

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286)]

That brings up an interesting question:

Is it more likely that a reporter, or the US government can count to numbers above 10 while wearing close-toed shoes?

Re:

[Sciros (986030)]

LOL how cute. Maybe once you get a better handle on English grammar and basic arithmetic you'll learn that "agreed to do X things but said Y things are unfeasible" implies X+Y things (not a number less than or equal to X+Y). Furthermore, play around with misinterpretations of that sentence and with set theory all you want, you're not going to end up with 16 recommendations.

Hilarious Greed

[eldavojohn (898314)]

The love of money. Source of all things evil throughout the world (that's in the Bible somewhere). And if you're in corporate America, it's also the source of all motivation.

How much is your own privacy worth to you? Can't put a price on it, can you? But it's amazing how fast some people can come up with a dollar amount when it's someone else's privacy. I guess the same can be said about a human life--unfortunately.

Here's something (that is hopefully) a bit enraging to think about. You may be paying taxes to your government that fund an agency to spy on you. Hell, with the NSA wiretapping, the odds are high. How do you like that business model? You're paying for someone to watch you and press charges against you if you do something wrong. What an investment!

And this is all very patriotic of the Telcos, serving their government up until they are past due on payments. All in the name of justice and freedom, indeed! This is genuinely amazing, you just can't even make this stuff up, people.

Re:

[Sciros (986030)]

But for real this is all hardly ideal. Ideally we'd be paying taxes to have the FBI/NSA/etc. investigate folks what are *reasonable* to investigate. By far most of us would never have to worry about having our privacy invaded, etc. That is, the FBI and other agencies would be *doing their job keeping us safe.* And, ideally, they'd be doing it competently and paying their bills on time so that they're allowed to do their work!

Sadly neither of those seems to be the case.

comment rules for stories about wiretapping:

[circletimessquare (444983)]

1. make sure to confuse the need to condemn bad and corrupt law enforcement with the need to condemn all law enforcement, good and bad

2. make sure to confuse the need to question improperly obtained wiretap warrants with the need to question all wiretaps warrants, proper and improper

there, now you are ready to flame on in misunderstanding and miscommunication on the subject of wiretapping. enjoy!

Argument

[omarius (52253)]

Another puissant argument against "warrantless wiretapping." If these investigations and programs (and agents) are so poorly supervised by the FBI, it's ludicrous to insinuate that the people ought to trust them to do the Right Thing.

I thought they wiretapped out of patriotism

[alextheseal (653421)]

If it really was patriotism that motivated they would let billing issues slide. So I guess this proves we should not give them a pass on the illegal ones since they will stop tapping for money, but not for laws which is the ultimate in contempt for law.

Re:I thought they wiretapped out of patriotism

[Shakrai (717556)]

So I guess this proves we should not give them a pass on the illegal ones since they will stop tapping for money,

Actually, regardless of what you think about all the warrentless wiretapping stuff, why the hell are the telcos even allowed to charge for this service to begin with?

If you believe that wiretaps (approved with due process of law) serve a purpose in criminal and/or national security investigations then how the hell can you condone the telcos charging for them? After they have received billions of dollars in tax breaks, Government assistance, laws mandating that they have the right of way to build their networks, Government granted monopolies, blah, blah, blah. After all that, they get to charge the Government money for this service? How much does it actually cost to setup a wiretap on a modern system? I'll go out on a limb and say it's probably all done from a keyboard.

Heh,

[Jefan (1096649)]

Can you hear me now?

Republican Heads Assplode

[by Anonymous Coward]

As a secular progressive, I'm curious, what is the conservative Republican line on this one?

- Are the phone companies bad for shutting off the FBI and thereby "aidin' terrirsts"?

OR

- Are the phone companies fully justified by free market economics in shutting off a deadbeat government agency that wouldn't even have a budget but stealing it in the form of taxes from hard working Americans?

In Soviet Russia...

[Robber Baron (112304)]

...this sort of news is what as known as "disinformation".

So it's OK to let your guard down now because those screwups at the FBI can't manage to pay their bills on time. Sorry, but I call bullshit on that one.
If somebody with clout thinks you need to be watched, rest assured that you are being watched.

Re:

[CrazyJim1 (809850)]

That's the first thing I thought of too. Dear Public,"We got shut off because our bills weren't paid on time." Not said to Public,"We paid them a day late and we're tapping again."

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[rodney dill (631059)]

In Soviet Russia wiretap cancels you.

Re:

[Helevius (456392)]

You have clearly never worked in a government agency.

Sure they have....

[drcagn (715012)]

That's what they want you to think.

I wonder how much $$$

[rolfwind (528248)]

the phone companies are making helping the government spy on us?

Just asking.

How many were rogue wiretaps?

[whoever57 (658626)]

One explanation for the non-payment could be that these (or some of these) wiretaps were made without authorization, and would not have been authorized if a request had been made. Note that I am not arguing the warrant/warrantless issue, rather, I am suggesting that rogue agents within the FBI set up these wiretaps without even following whatever minimal control procedures the FBI has in place.

Terrorism vs. Civil Rights vs. Being Paid On Time

[KoshClassic (325934)]

Apparently these wiretaps deal with issues that are important enough that the government feels that it needs to set asside our civil rights. Yet these issues and our civil rights are not as important as the phone company being paid on time. Why don't these laws force the phone companies to maintain the wiretaps regardless of when payment is received?

Ah yes, human error and incompatible bureaucracies

[TWX (665546)]

Human error and incompatible bureaucracies will be the two things preventing 1984 from ever truly coming true...

Instead we'll see Brazil...

Oh Irony

[pembo13 (770295)]

I would guess that the Telcos agreed to this purely for profit in the first place, because, seriously, what is the FBI going to do to a coalition of US cooperations. And noww, they aren't even getting paid.

Capitalism at it's finest

[bigtrike (904535)]

How soon until we're required to use multiple carriers so the government can negotiate the lowest rate?

Hold on a freaking minute here!!

[zappepcs (820751)]

Let me get this straight. Dubya wants us to trust him and his 'boys' to listen in on our private lives, and promises that the information will not be misused. Then they go and show us how responsible they are by 'forgetting' to pay the phone bills? Actually stealing money, and other violations of public trust.

Is it just me, or do we need to start fixing the elections ourselves to ensure that there is a clean sweep through all of the US Government?

Diebold has given us a way to do it, and the powers that be keep insisting that it is not possible... Maybe we should just organize it ourselves?

With great power comes great need for oversight

[jheath314 (916607)]

I've never understood the current mania of increased government powers with less accountability. I'm all for increasing the powers of the spooks to spy, just so long as it is balanced by increased accountability and oversight.

Increasing power while decreasing the oversight consistently gives bad results: at best we see this kind of sloppiness on the part of the FBI; at worst we get the kinds of abuses that have blackened America's reputation around the world.

Re:

[TubeSteak (669689)]

I've never understood the current mania of increased government powers with less accountability. I'm all for increasing the powers of the spooks to spy, just so long as it is balanced by increased accountability and oversight.

A) Fast
B) Cheap
C) Properly
Pick two.

Which two do you think the government picked?
Hint: Accountability & oversight are expensive and slow

The people being wiretapped weren't billed.

[Animats (122034)]

It could be worse. Back when the FBI was taking down the New York Mafia, the FBI didn't pay the bill on some of their wiretaps. The billing software then billed the other party on the connection, the Mafia guys being wiretapped. It's in Guliani's book about that operation.

Wiretaps are a billable service. See this DoJ document [usdoj.gov]. Search for "Wiretap Fees" in the document. A typical 30-day wiretap costs from $250 to $2600. There are base wiretap fees, monthly maintenance fees, per switch set-up fees, additional switch fees, uninterrupted continuation fees, call-bridging fees, "pinging" fees, extension fees, and fees for activity reports. Prosecutors can't challenge the fees in civil court because the wiretap orders are sealed by a criminal court.

90% of all wiretap requests now involve mobile phones, according to DoJ.