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]

Nelson Muntz: Ha Ha!

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

Re:Let's get this out of the way

[Jonesy69]

I see your "ha ha"

And raise you a "ha ha Fuckers!"

Re:

[Captain Splendid]

I see your ha ha fuckers! and raise you a "ha ha you fuckin' bums!"

more specificly

[r00t]

They don't have to care. They're the phone company.

Oval Office Scene....

[mudetroit]

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]

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

Re:

[LifesABeach]

Reporters tried to contact the Office of the F.B.I but the line was disconnected, and there was no new number.

Ha Ha!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

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]

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]

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

Film at 11.

I wish I considered this good news

[gnick]

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]

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

Re:I wish I considered this good news

[gnick]

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:

[Doc Ruby]

The "administrators" are Bush & Cheney's Executive Branch that's running the whole shabby criminal enterprise. The "arrests" would have to be ordered by their Justice Department that's operating their big chunk of the whole shabby criminal enterprise.

I'd like to see Bush/Cheney boil themselves in oil on the White House lawn, but as long as that's up to Bush/Cheney, I'll have to wait for the videogame.

Re:I wish I considered this good news

[CrazedWalrus]

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]

The Jews.

Re:

[Detritus]

No! It's the bicycle riders!

Re:

[Dr. Cody]

O.J. Simpson? Not a Jew.

Re:

[CrazedWalrus]

I considered that, but it seems like they were only caught because of bad luck. I'm not foolish enough to think there are no controls whatsoever, but someone committing a brazen act like that has a pretty good expectation that he'll get away with it.

Re:

[dbIII]

The same one that uses Wonder Woman's golden lariat as a law enforcement tool to the amusement of the rest of the world. That's right - the lie detector was invented by the artist that drew Wonder Woman, adopted by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI has not wanted to admit it was scammed all those years ago so still uses the thing.

Re:I wish I considered this good news

[morbiuswilters]

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]

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]

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:

[phoenixwade]

HA! Such a funny AC and you typed all that one handed! !

Re:

[sgt_doom]

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

dysfunctional

[cvd6262]

I'm not surprised, and "dysfunctional" is the appropriate word to describe most of the US government. (And I would add most large and many small governments.)

OT, but....

When I was in college, I worked between 3 and 5 part time jobs (mostly tech-related). I had the habit of declaring zero deductions, just to simplify my life. When tax time came, I was expecting a nice refund, but instead I had to pay. Why?

The explanation I got was that "to protect the poor" the state did not withhold money from small paychec

Re:

[dajak]

My first reaction to this article was: I smell a spin doctor. The 'news' the audit reveals is the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations, which raises serious issues. This anecdote makes it seem harmless. Late payment is perfectly normal even in the most anal retentive organizations that *do* check how every penny is spent. More interesting is how money that went missing was used, and whether there are incentives to be 'lax'. If you want to get away with being lax, it is good to beha

Re:

[PitaBred]

Well, the US has a lot bigger job than the Netherlands. A LOT of the world's communication goes through our networks, whereas you've only really got your country to worry about. It's like trying to find the needle in a haystack vs. finding the needle in a breadbox full of hay. Scale does matter, even with computers.

Re:

[dajak]

Well, the US has a lot bigger job than the Netherlands. A LOT of the world's communication goes through our networks, whereas you've only really got your country to worry about.

Definitely not: US imports and exports are for instance less than three times larger than those of the Netherlands, with twenty times the population, so the US has the smaller proportional burden watching what crosses its borders.

We host the biggest internet exchange point of the world [wikipedia.org], and redistribute a large share of Europe's impo

Re:

[rtb61]

Perhaps accounts payable baulked at the total bill. In most companies if costs where spiralling out of control, I would expect accounts to halt payments until the matter could be investigated. "In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totalled $66,000", no wonder the telecoms have been lapping up invading every bodies privacy.

One FBI office, for one telecom, for a single billing period, exactly how many tens of millions of dollars has been spent on illegal wire taps to feed th

Re:

[slackmaster2000]

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]

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]

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

Re:

[skarphace]

Are you implying that rape victims would be better off dead?

Many people do believe this to be true. This is specially true when it's a child. When you fuck up a kid's head like that, odds are larger then usual they're just going to continue the cycle and have a horrible life in the process.

While I still can't decide which side I'm on, I can understand why some people may think death is better then rape, torture, imprisonment, and a whole bunch of other things.

Re:

[tedrlord]

Many people do believe this to be true. This is specially true when it's a child. When you fuck up a kid's head like that, odds are larger then usual they're just going to continue the cycle and have a horrible life in the process.

While I still can't decide which side I'm on, I can understand why some people may think death is better then rape, torture, imprisonment, and a whole bunch of other things.

I know several people who were raped as children (none of whom were in any way involved with this "child porn" the government loves to scare people with) and I have to say in every occasion, they are doing well enough. Yes, it was a terribly traumatic experience, and some of them never recovered, but they can live their lives despite this and have more or less the same chance to find happiness as anyone else. Personally, I'm very glad they're still alive as several of them are good friends of mine.

Rape is

Re:

[oatworm]

You are correct. However, I don't give a damn about WHY it's happening. I just know that it IS happening.

I never said it was right. However, "why" is a very important point to consider. If it was a grand conspiracy by the government to gain unwanted power, the solution would be fairly simple - overthrow it either through force or fraud. However, if it's just politicians pandering to the voters, it doesn't matter if we overthrow it or not - it'll just get replaced with more of the same.

You don't think we need to fix what we broke in Iraq?

Never said we didn't.

Death sure is final...no backsies. Are you implying that rape victims would be better off dead? I don't think you are, but your argument is a little odd. I mean, the victim could always choose to off themself, but if you kill them, then there is no choice.

I'm certainly not implying that rape victims would be better off dead. That said, rape is pretty f

Re:

[Ravon Rodriguez]

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.

If we can't take care of our own, how can we possibly police the rest of the world? I agree that the tragedies overseas are important, but the purpose of a government is to take care of its own citizens first.

Re:

[slackmaster2000]

Straw man. This has nothing at all to do with the federal government overstepping its bounds. It has everything to do with whether the telcos made a good decision to pull the plug on all wiretaps over an unpaid bill. The telcos do not oversee the morality of the federal government. The bottom line here is money.

And if a parent's responsibility to protect his child means that we need not enforce child abuse laws, well, that logic is the path to anarchy.

There is always a less fortunate person. "Who gives

Wiretaps: Drugs and Gambling, mostly

[billstewart]

The Feds publish statistics about legal wiretaps; your actual mileage after including illegal ones may vary. The vast majority are for drug cases, and the vast majority of the rest are for gambling; I'm shocked, shocked!, to hear that the Feds aren't paying all their phone bills on those. There may be a few child porn investigations (but those are mostly Internet investigations, without much voice phone call involvement), and there may be a few terrorism investigations where the Feds' informant isn't one

Apparently...

[uxbn_kuribo]

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

Re:Apparently...

[JustOK]

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.

Re:

[natedubbya]

It just goes to show that small amounts of money speak louder than millions of angry citizens. The latter hasn't ended one wiretap, the former halted it immediately.

Recommendations

[Sciros]

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]

'16. Do not follow this recommendation'.

Re:

[Translation Error]

'16. This is the famous recursive recommendation. (See recommendation 16)'

Re:Recommendations

[sumdumass]

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]

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

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

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:

[daemonenwind]

They skipped the "..." recommendation; I can hardly blame them.

#15 and 16 are as follows:
15: .....
16: Profit!

Re:

[PPH]

16. Don't use Excel to track bills.

17. Don't use Excel to make lists of recommendations.

Re:

[Sciros]

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.

Re:

[Sciros]

Well if we want to get that deep into it, then it starts to also matter what domain you're in. "3 of the monitors in our IT offices are CRT, but 252 are LCD" implies 255 monitors since those are pretty much the only kinds of monitors you can expect would be talked about. In this case, yeah, the other recommendation might still be under consideration, and really I was making a joke with my original post and nothing more. But to have someone step in and throw set theory at me was just stupid.

Hilarious Greed

[eldavojohn]

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]

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]

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!

they do have oversight. these guys have bosses

[circletimessquare]

what you want is adversarial oversight. such as when the democrats go at the republicans in public hearings and such. that is true oversight

but you really can't get adversarial oversight in a process which by its very nature must be secret. even if you said "ok, i understand the need for secrecy, but there's nothing saying you can't have adversarial oversight done by someone who is not of the process who is sworn to secrecy. a true watchdog"

ok, fine. put the watchdogs in place. happy now? no, you aren't

beca

huh?

[circletimessquare]

what the hell are you talking about?

Argument

[omarius]

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.

Re:

[Solandri]

Actually, I think this is a better argument against immunity for the telecos for warrantless wiretapping. If the telecos are willing to shut down wiretapping for an unpaid bill, they should've been willing to stop warrantless wiretapping until a court could rule on its legality. Apparently National Security is a legitimate argument to them only if they're being paid.

I do not think that word means...

[lennier]

... what you think it means.

puissant [m-w.com]

Pronunciation:
        \-snt, -snt\
Function:
        adjective
Date:
        15th century

: having puissance : powerful

Perhaps you meant pissant [m-w.com]?

I thought they wiretapped out of patriotism

[alextheseal]

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]

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.

Re:

[RembrandtX]

As always, it is the Looters that expect to get money for nothing. The telco's have every right to charge whatever they want for wire-taps. Regardless of whatever kickbacks they have gotten before. To not due so - would be giving up even more rights that the people who's lines they are tapping.

Re:

[slapout]

I've often thought the same thing about company's "Activation fees" that are just someone changing something in a computer.

Re:

[Mister Whirly]

"why the hell are the telcos even allowed to charge for this service to begin with?

Well, because one of the foundations for capitalism is that goods and services cost money? Why should the phone companies provide a service for free? They are corporations with a bottom line of turning a profit, not protecting a nation...

Re:

[Sciros]

Well, the thing is also the government *has money for this.* The FBI is budgeted to do stuff; headquarters gets money to use for wiretapping and renting cars and buying fake moustaches and trenchcoats and new jackets with big yellow "FBI" lettering and all that other good FBI stuff, as, so I gather, do the various offices. The problem is the money isn't being managed well. On the one hand you have headquarters not paying for stuff it's supposed to pay for. On the other hand you have agents stealing money.

Th

Re:

[Shakrai]

why whould it pay for any goods or services they provide?

Paying for goods and services is one thing. Being gouged for them after providing an industry with numerous Government hand-outs is another.

TFA said that one office had over $66,000 owed to a single telco. Either they had a shitload of wiretaps or the phone company is gouging them. I can't find the old /. story, but recall the story where the Comcast guide for law enforcement (including fees for retrieval of records and wiretaps) was posted? Some of the fees they were charging seemed grossly out of

Re:

[Shakrai]

18 USC 2518(4) Any provider of wire or electronic communication service, landlord, custodian or other person furnishing such facilities or technical assistance shall be compensated therefor by the applicant for reasonable expenses incurred in providing such facilities or assistance.

You should get a +5 informative for digging that citation up. Good find.

If the government feels the expense is not reasonable they should ask the court for relief.

The Government considers a lot of expenses "reasonable". I guess I'm wondering (as a taxpayer) if AT&T charging an FBI office over sixty thousand dollars for wiretaps is "reasonable".

Heh,

[Jefan]

Can you hear me now?

Re:

[AshtangiMan]

Truly funny.

Republican Heads Assplode

[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?

Re:

[GeneralEmergency]

As a secular conservative...

Rank and file incompetence and/or mismanagement in any Governmental agency is unacceptable. Due to the inherent difficulties in managing large numbers of people, which helps creates this kind of misaction and waste, it is in everyone's interest to reduce the size of the Federal Government.

The Phone Companies are well within their legal rights and have (in this instance) done nothing unethical.

Establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility and providing for the common defenc

In Soviet Russia...

[Robber Baron]

...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]

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]

In Soviet Russia wiretap cancels you.

Re:

[Helevius]

You have clearly never worked in a government agency.

Re:

[dbIII]

Soviet Russia had it's share of incompetance as well. Now getting away from the odd comparison consider the way federal law enforcement has been restructured in the last few years and the likelyhood of a horse judge or two ending up in postitions of responsibility.

Sure they have....

[drcagn]

That's what they want you to think.

I wonder how much $$$

[rolfwind]

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

Just asking.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a good question, could I pay the phone companies more to not spy on me? I mean, why not? It's clearly a financial decision if this article is to be believed. If that was an option I'd consider getting a phone...

Keep in mind, if you want to reply to me you may not use the word "extortion".

How many were rogue wiretaps?

[whoever57]

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]

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?

Re:Terrorism vs. Civil Rights vs. Being Paid On Ti

[sumdumass]

I'm wondering that myself. Of course the constitution says that you can't take private property for public use without just compensation so maybe they right is more important then the other rights.

Well, actually, the right that is being pushed aside does have a reasonable test that can be interpreted differently depending on the moods of the courts where there isn't one about taking private property.

But leaving that alone, it is often difficult to get funding from the government in a timely manor. They usua

Ah yes, human error and incompatible bureaucracies

[TWX]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

Re:

[freedom_india]

A typical 30-day wiretap costs from $250 to $2600

So, you mean i can pay this amount to Verizon and ask them to tap... say... the NY Police commissioner's office?

After all under constitution ALL people are equal (except corporates, but that's a different topic), so i can just pay this money to verizon, and ask them to commence tapping?

I bet my lawyers will have a field day in court trying to defend me when the cops drag me down and make a rodney king out of me.

Wow

[smaddox]

I guess a free market DOES solve all problems!

Who would have guessed?

The check is in the....

[slashname3]

The check is in the mail! Really. It is. No lie. Put it there myself. But you have to restore the wire taps! You will get your money. [ bzzzzzzz...... ]

Did we just lose power? Why did the lights go out? You did pay the power bill didn't you? Damn!

Republicans proving, yet again...

[DavidTC]

...that 'government doesn't work' and 'government causes more problems than it solves'.

Or, at least, that applies to their government.

If I worked in the FBI, I'd be pissed. An agent go to all the work to collect evidence and get a real warrant for wiretapping and start it up and run the recordings every few days and suddenly, they discover that the wiretap has been cut off and not got anything for two days, and I bet it takes it a week to get back turned on.

Not because of any law, they're used to laws pr

Even in Soviet USA...

[BobMcD]

...cash is STILL king.

But but but!!!

[skintigh2]

These wiretaps are so important we must throw away the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and all privacy laws and then pass legislation making it retroactively legal to do all that and protect the phone companies from law suits and specifically protect Bush from felony prosecution!

This story is obviously all lies. The government would never lie about national security just to protect a president with a 20% approval record and to make the opposition party look week.

As long as you're doing nothing wrong yo

Billing error

[PPH]

What somebody needs to do is to contact each telco and request that a copy of the bill be sent, with each wiretap itemized, so that billing discrepancies may be resolved and prompt payments can be made.

Have it sent to an anonymous mail drop, forward copies to the various targets of surveillance and then step back and watch the fun ensue.

The Feds Must Pay for Wiretaps?

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Color me confused. Why should the FBI need to pay for wiretaps? Surely the laws can simply be changed so that telcos are not permitted to charge the government a fee for these services?

Re:

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I wouldn't say advocating, just thinking aloud. I just find it a bit curious that there would be legislation that required telcos to provide the government with wiretaps, but that telcos are allowed to bill for it. What's to prevent a telco from charging extremely high fees?

I would think that if the government wanted guaranteed access, that they would have set the system up such that they'd have the access they needed/wanted. In this case it seems like they needed access, but were prevented from obta

Patriotism? Yeah, right.

[hyades1]

Should some of those instances of illegal wiretapping ever go to court, this should nicely torpedo any argument by the telcoms that they only whored themselves out to the Bush administration out of a sense of patriotism.