Wiretaps dropped after FBI doesn't pay bills
An audit revealed that the FBI didn't pay for over half of 990 phone bills for surveillance services on time, so the phone companies who were owed money dropped the wiretaps.
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.LinkA 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.
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If I pick up the tab, does that mean I get to listen in on the wiretaps?
Only if you can provide immunity from prosecution. If you can manage that, telecom companies would probably let you burn rape and pillage. As long as you paid them.
It's moments like this, weirdly enough, that make me feel safer. Sure, lone maniacs want to kill me and fascist bureaucrats want to to go through my garbage, but neither of them are a darn bit of good at it. Their success is exceptional rather than normal.
Funding for wiretapping known/suspected criminals, which has a proven track record of success at securing arrests and convictions: No
Funding for wiretapping the entire population of the united states, and pretty much everyone who's phone traffic is routed through the US, in hopes that it may eventually become feasable to actually sort through all that data and make an arrest: Yes
So the fact that in most cases these wiretaps were illegal and even unconstitutional doesn't stop the telcos from doing them... but the fact that they haven't been getting paid for it does?
May I be the first to say: "BWAHAHAHAHA!"
Eeek. I was actually okay (in practice, if not in principle) with retroactive immunity, because I couldn't be sure that the telecoms weren't simply yielding to the threat of a jackboot upside the head if they didn't go along. I guess this pretty much blows that out of the water.
On the other hand, maybe now the government will finally do something about the ridiculous fees that phone monopolies charge for illegal services. I can just see Dubya trying to decipher the bill. "$8.42 for an 'expedited miscellaneous service charge overage fee'? What the hell does that even mean?!"
Water always seeks a level, and the two rules of plumbing, as I learned in my first year: Payday comes on Friday and shit don't run uphill.
Perhaps it just trickles down. Will bureaucracy prove to be its own just reward? First FEMA, now this? Or perhaps it's just feeding my own cynicism. Where the hell did I leave that foil hat?
Hey, a well-run bureaucracy can get a lot done. This is inept bureaucracy.
Yes TNH, but are the trains running on time? Of late we have been seeing too much of the downside of fascism, with nothing to show on the up side. I welcome you to argue that with me.
Besides, inept + bureaucracy = redundant.
Classic.
For what it's worth, the fascists never actually made the trains run on time. They just told everyone that they had, and jailed anyone who argued. That's fascism in a nutshell, really.
So given that the up side of fascism is comforting lies, I'd say we actually are seeing a lot of it.
Evil *and* incompetent. Great combo.
So much for the 'patriotic duty' argument...
Why do they bother gathering evidence when they already have laws that let them do anything to anybody? Who needs evidence?
Since torture is available (and of course it must work or it wouldn't be legal), why wiretap? Just pick up the usual suspects and beat the information out of them instead of listening to hour after hour of calls to telephone sex lines.
This isn't like he old days where you had to slowly build a case against a cagey Mafia. Now you can cut to the chase and serve justice expresso.
So, the only reason the phone agree to wiretapping is the income they can make from it ... so instead of trying to talk the white house out of anything, all you have to do is tack on 10 words to another bill that in effect says something to the effect of "wiretap reimbursement is capped at $99 per line." or expand it out further, "reimbursement is at billed rate after indictment & conviction, $99 maximum reimbursement per line without indictment & conviction." Then we'll see how willing the phone companies are in joining random fishing expeditions.
Hahaha, great idea to privatise the telcos.