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U.S. Wiretapping Surges 19%
linuxwrangler writes "Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged 19% in 2004 to 1,710. Court orders relating to terror-related investigations are not included in the wiretap statistics and those warrants reached a record 1,754 last year. Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received."
1. wire tap payphones 2. find out where my nigerian friend hid the money 3. ...
4. profit!
There is no sig
first tap
..cell phones? Can they 'tap' a cell phone?
-Valiss
"We're still seeing a huge trend toward increased surveillance," said Edgar. In another story, a company called fake alibi is spreading its wings.
This must explain all that heavy breathing when I call those 1-900-XXX numbers.
If you give a liberal an enema, he'll turn transparent.
Has the Bush administration proven that they really care about the rights of citizens, particularly on the Internet?
You must understand... its just like a parent listening on their kid, to find out what trouble they are getting in... Only mom is a guy in a suit getting paid to listen to your phone sex.
This signature is part of a balanced post.
This makes a certain sense. Law enforcement, both police and judges, must feel they are on the same side and under siege by the forces of crime. After all, that's all they see and work with every day. So just as units of soldiers bond and stand up for each other, I imagine it must be tempting for judges and police to bond, or at least feel they are both working the same job from different angles. So they are probably predisposed to think the police know what they are doing when they ask for a wire-tap. Most of the time, they are probably right.
But yeah, it sure does allow the slip-ups (and the occasional outright corruption) to get through mostly unchallenged. That's the downside, and a good reminder why a citizen should never give their governing structure any kind of power without realizing they will use that power early and often and repeatedly, and when someone becomes corrupt it will get used in a corrupted manner. And with very little in the way of real checks and balances in a practical sense.
guess i'd better download skype
I'd hardly call that a 'surge." More like a abrupt rise. For me, a surge implies that it is an unstoppable force. 19% is not too awe-inspiring. Its like saying, oh my god.. Slashdot trolls increase by 19%!!
What is your penile percentile?
Damn Patriot Act.
"accounted for four of every four surveillance orders"
"or about ten out of every nine"
I was going to ignore it after the first one, but two in one article? C'mon AP, what sort of debacle is this?
Some 1,507 wiretaps -- or about ten out of every nine -- targeted portable devices, such as cell phones and pagers.
That's about 111%. Nice work with the numbers there.
"I planned within my means and got a fixed rate mortgage, so where's MY bailout?" -cafepress
They are doing a lot more taps than they are admitting. I was aware of that many taps in (Insert large city name here) during just a few months in the early '90's.
Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received.
This is a little harsh, I think. First of all, the judge isn't saying "I believe that the wiretap target is guilty, therefore I authorize the wiretap." You don't have to be presumed guilty for a warrant to be necessary--there just has to be some indication that you may be guilty, the purpose of the warrant being to find out for sure.
Second of all, the system admits that it isn't perfect because human judgement has flaws, and attempts to balance individual rights against the need for effective law enforcement. The US Supreme Court has allowed an exception to search and seizure rules called the "good faith" exception. Basically, the doctrine states that if a law enforcement officer asks for a warrant or executes a search based on a warrant, and it's later shown that the warrant was invalid (shouldn't have been issued, information was bad, whatever), the SEARCH isn't necessarily invalid. As long as the officers involved made an honest mistake, the courts say that they're allowed to use the evidence to prosecute.
Why's this relevant? Because it shows that the point of the warrant-granting process is to check abusive behavior by law enforcement. It does its best to prevent honest, innocent people from being hassled, but it's not meant to try a case before the evidence is collected!
It seems likely, then, that in a properly-functioning system, nearly all warrant requests will be granted. Since officers know that someone is watching and second-guessing their warrant requests, they're not likely to try to slip bullshit pretenses in. The officers know the rules in advance, and probably won't bother trying to get a warrant unless they're pretty sure it's going to be successful.
It's the same reason why District Attorneys, nationwide, have a better-than 95% average conviction rate for cases brought to trial. If they think the case isn't going to stick, they won't try it.
If you want real privacy, use SpeakFreely with your own choice of encryption library.
You would think with nearly 2000 requests, at least ONE might be found without merit, no?
I don't usually wear a tinfoil hat, but that scares me.
Our old story on VoIP Wiretapping
Interestingly in U.S., there are serious legal restrictions on the use of wiretaps by police agencies. The Supreme Court has consistently held that wiretaps qualify as searches under the Fourth Amendment.
Article on related topic of Open Internet Wiretapping: Carnivore
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) policy on wiretapping which says: The IETF restates its strongly held belief, stated at greater length in [RFC 1984], that both commercial development of the Internet and adequate privacy for its users against illegal intrusion requires the wide availability of strong cryptographic technology.
Another issue: Is Dialing Into a Conference Call an Interception?
Real patriots have their phone lines wiretapped 24/7!
Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received.
Well, how many cases were there where the wiretap evidence was suppressed? If the initial request wasn't legally valid, then a court can throw out the illegally obtained evidence.
I find it hard to believe that these are just "rubberstamps" seeing aswithout any concrete evidence to justify the wiretap, any evidence they would gather from one or as a direct result from one would be not be admitted as evidence due to that whole 4th Amendment thingy.
Plus the article gives a plausible technological reason the increase given that it takes more stuff these days to nail people. Can't exactly bust someone plotting over blackberry, etc through pre-blackberry techniues.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
Hey Judge, grant this for us.
Hmm, no, I'm not sure.
Erm, it's terrorism related.
Oh, shit, well, I guess I'd better.
Get your own free personal location tracker
That explains the strange clicks on the line. . .
What was our population increase in 2004?
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
New York, California, New Jersey and Florida -- accounted for four of every four surveillance orders, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
Now those are some numbers that are hard to argue with.
As soon as even low grade encryption becomes common the police are going to be screwed. The only reason normal phone lines arn't encrypted phone-to-phone is because it would be a hassle and would lower the quality (some sort of 56k modem in your phone, unless you can do some other trickery modulating with noise). As soon as you get to the realm of VoIP and phones have some processing power encryption starts to become something a system just 'might as well do'. Obviously man-in-the-middle would be a possibility but its trivial to just make a call and at the start read out a portion of your key and let the other person confirm it.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I just RTFA, and nowhere did it say how what percentage was approved vs. rejected. It looks like the poster just made this "fact" up out of his ass in order to make the big bad gubmnt look bad.
The summary should be edited and lie removed.
1754... that's all?
"Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received." Lol, or they just do what our county police do. Wait till three or four am and call a judge, telling them how VITAL it is that they have this right now or these horrible horrible people will get away. Lol, they will sign about anything.
Of course wiretaps went up..
;-)
It was an election year, after all.
Looks like those paper-pushing nancy-boys down at City Hall have finally realised we're fighting the good fight down here. This is the street, man, and it ain't pretty. I don't need no panty-waisted girly-man bleating about "civil rights" and "due process", that's exactly the kind of BS that gets the bad off on "a technicality".
/not ragging on cops, just how the "renegade cop who doesn't do things by the book but gets the job done" cliche is so popular in Hollywood while so despised in real life. :-)
"Technicality" my ass! I bagged that scumbag fair and square. If those assholes think I should have waited until I had evidence, they're living in fairyland.
yeah im so tired of judicial activism. stupid judges think they can allow the police to invade everyones privacy! judges need to be put back in their place and stop creating laws from their benches. seriously we need more good moral conservative judges!!!!!!!!
-----now back to reality (aka me NOT being a tired right wing mouthpiece)-----
idk maybe more people are committing more crimes? or maybe po po are doing their job better?
hard to say just from this single statistic whether this is good or bad.
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
Court orders relating to terror-related investigations are not included in the wiretap statistics...
So what? The use of the Patriot Act has been shown to be used in terrorist activity almost not at all! Instead, it has been used against drug dealers, tax evaders and even Congressmen from Texas, but NOT against terrorists!
Note that this is the exact opposite of what they said when lobbying for the Patriot Act in the first place. Dramatic proof that our forefathers knew exactly what they were doing when they founded this country. You cannot trust government!
Even though these numbers don't include terror investigations (which are no doubt being used quite liberally [that kid who shoplifted from the Seven Eleven **might** be doing it to feed terrorists]) the net effect is that people still feel threatened and feel that intrusions are part of the "War on drugs/terror/whatever".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
There's 300 million people in the US, and there were less than 2000 wiretaps. That's one wiretap per 150,000 people...that seems mighty low to me, especially since I live in a drug-infested suburban town with a whopping 5,000 people which therefore had a 1 in 30 chance of ANY wiretapping at all in the past year, as I would say that my town is no more likely to have a wiretapping than the average, but I could certainly imagine one being needed. It seems to me like saying, "Holy shit! Wiretappings have risen from 10 to 100 in the US in the past year! that's a 900% increase!" It's too small for an increase of any size to make much difference.
So now they're replacing phone-sex whores with...burly FBI agents?
*sighs* What must a [horny single|unhappy spouse] do to privately get off these days...
Well if I hear one of those guys wiretapping me I'll...uh...wiretap them and...uh...find their cellphones in the trash...while I...get trapped in...a...sting...D'OH!
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
"Drug dealers now are making use not just of traditional cell phones but a variety of devices, including Blackberries, pagers, and Nextels. So most likely these increased wiretap numbers simply reflect law enforcement's continuing efforts to keep pace with both the tactics and technology that is being used on the street," said Barr.
Someone needs to let Nextel know that they don't have traditional cell-phones.
Er, wait, it's now Sprint-Nextel which has incorporated all of the features of Nextel cell-phones into Sprint ones.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
and have your computer bugged with a keytrap, doesn't mean that you're guilty.
But in the USA, you might as well be.
Sigh.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
But yeah, it sure does allow the slip-ups (and the occasional outright corruption) to get through mostly unchallenged. That's the downside, and a good reminder why a citizen should never give their governing structure any kind of power without realizing they will use that power early and often and repeatedly, and when someone becomes corrupt it will get used in a corrupted manner. And with very little in the way of real checks and balances in a practical sense.
Maybe we need a law that says judges who approve 80%+ of the requests for warrents they recieve in a year, must have those cases reviewed to see if they all panned out.
If a judge approves a wire tap, and only 60% or less of those warrents lead to convictions (not just an arrest), then we have a problem. A Judge needs probable cause, and for me probable cause means the police already has strong evidence the person is going to break a crime.
There is one website, I will not mention it here, it is used by police officers (if you google, you will find). They talk about everything. Some forums are public forums (anyone who registers can read and post), and other forums are hidden, you must be part of a group to post. I saw that hidden area once and I was shocked to read some of the "tricks" police use to get warrents, to harrass people, and to stick together. For example, if a police officer thinks a judge will be resistant to approving a warrent, they will hit up some neighborhood scum to say "yeah... he is about to sell drugs from his house this weekend". And one other dirty trick. Say a police officer has a real and valid reason to believe you have a stolen car in your garage. This is a true story by the way from that forum. The police officer asked for advice with getting a warrent, because he wanted it all legal. One of the other experianced police officers told him to include drugs on the warrent, because if he does not, he can only search the garage and not desks or cabinets. One of the requirements of a warrent is you can only search for what you're looking for. So if he gets a warrent for a stolen car, and finds drugs hidden in the silverware cabinet in the house, they can't arrest the person for the drugs (unless the person is an idiot and lets them search, or gets a crappy public defender).
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
"...surged 19% in 2004 to 1,710."
/ us.html#Comm
1710 taps , how many phone lines in the US?
Telephones - main lines in use: 181,599,900
Telephones - mobile cellular: 158.722 million
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
340 million lines in the US.
Should have been from the uncle-sam-isn't-listening to many dept.
Here come the slide to Nazi Germany and whatnot posts.
"Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received."
Or maybe Judges demanded a crapload of extra evidence for the tiny number of wire taps approved.
If the judges and the police are "on the same side" concepts like probable cause go out the window (see police state).
They've generally seen themselves as "on the same side" all along, and we're not a police state yet. It takes a lot more than a little coziness for that to happen. It takes a willingness on the part of judges to rule entirely according to their personal whims rather than on the law -- either that, or a legal system that gives people no rights to begin with. What we're seeing here is not a sudden collapse of the entire judiciary into pure untrammelled arbitrariness. Things may be slipping a bit. But the sun will still rise in the morning.
So, this looks like a bad trend to me, but I wouldn't start hiding under the bed already. What's sad is that whenever anybody says "judicial activism", you immediately salivate at the bell and start pounding the table about those DAMN RIGHT WINGERS... Obviously, everything they say is wrong, because they're not "us" -- they're "THEM"! NOOOO! MOMMY, SAVE ME! But quite seriously, most people on the "right" care very much about civil liberties. People on the right are capable of doing the right thing, and people on the left ARE capable of doing the wrong thing. Get it? Like, they're human, and therefore fallible? Like, you're seriously kidding yourself if you trust somebody just because he's a member of the party whose mascot is a donkey instead of an elephant? Or vice-versa? If Hitler were a registered Democrat, some of you morons would decide he had the right idea after all. Partisanism rots your brain, kid. That's true regardless of which party you belong to. Conservatives do it too. Nowadays they're not going bugfuck psychotic with it like a lot of liberals are, but we all remember Ken Starr, don't we? Nobody is immune.
It's your kind of blind partisanism that kills democracies. When this one dies it won't be the Dems alone who deserve the blame, but they'll have their fair share.
everyone jump up and down!
freak out!
AAAH SKY FALLING OMG OMG WTF LOL ROR !@!!@@one!at!
aah sky aah aah
Skype encryption protects you from potential eavesdropping from malicious users.
;)
My bet is they don't include "Law Enforcement holding a warrant" as a "malicious user".
n/t
Oddly enough, the actual article (not copied text) doesn't seem to have these two errors.
Maybe we need a law that says judges who approve 80%+ of the requests for warrents they recieve in a year, must have those cases reviewed to see if they all panned out.
If a judge approves a wire tap, and only 60% or less of those warrents lead to convictions (not just an arrest), then we have a problem. A Judge needs probable cause, and for me probable cause means the police already has strong evidence the person is going to break a crime.The statistics approach to performance evaluation has proven destructive everywhere it's been tried, in every field. Look at what's happening in the UK, where police simply ignore problems in order to keep their statistics looking good. It sounds appealing, but it's not the answer.
By the way, "probable cause" usually means they have compelling reason to believe you already did commit a crime, not that they figure you're thinking real hard about it. Not that the latter won't do just as well, if you've taken concrete steps towards doing it. Like going ahead and building a bomb, maybe. That usually makes a bad impression.
In general, you do have a point: The cops know the system and they can abuse it. So could you, if you knew it as well as they do, but you don't, because that's not your job. This has been going on as long as there have been police. There's no cure; all you can do is try to keep it under control. Life sucks.
You're posting the text of a San Francisco Chronicle article, circulation +.5mil, so it isn't slashdotted? I am grateful to be able to RTFA without having to click the link, but I think they don't need to worry about slowing down from slashdotting.
A common mistake everybody makes when looking at statistics like these is to forget about the baseline.
As they said in the article, this increase is probably due to the increase in how much various kinds of wireless devices (cellphones, blackberries, etc. ) are being used by criminals. If you wanted to confirm this, you'd have to see whether there really was such an increase. Does the general population use these kinds of devices 19% more this year than last? Do criminals? Perhaps they have been increasingly using them over several years, and only now have the police started to modify their tactics. You can only build up an argument that there is in fact an increase in "big-brotherish" surveillance if the number of such wiretaps goes well beyond the "need" for them.
More disturbing is the claim that Judges didn't reject a single request. This seems very wrong at first - especially when you have cop shows in the back of your mind where the crusading good-hearted but somewhat over-enthusiastic cop goes out searching for warrants from an old level-headed judge with flimsy evidence. It seems that there should be at least a few of these warrants which are rejected. Does are image of cops meet the reality? AlexB892 points out that it is seen as bad for a cop's career to have a wiretap requst rejected. Are cops really so diligent? Again - look to the baseline. What is the average number of rejected requests in any one year - these stats must be available somewhere. If you find that the average is only one or two rejections per year, then it seems reasonable that in any one year there might not be any at all. However, if it is much higher, you might question whether judges aren't being diligent enough in their scrutiny of the cops.
Always take statistics with a grain of salt - they're only numbers, and can be interpreted in many ways. If they're presented in the right way, they can seem to be strong evidence for some growing trend - but you really need other figures which give you the "context" to see if this is realistic - or just somebodies rhetoric.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
The technology aims to replace human judges, who may perform the process more slowly. This news comes days after Microsoft won approval on a patent that covers use of artificial intelligence to replace humans in legal professions.
"The artificial intelligence in our system will get it right 100% of the time when it comes to approving wiretaps, search warrants, and other such documents," said Gates in an interview.
Darl McBride said, "We are excited to bring new opportunities for freedom and privacy to citizens throughout the country." SCO is currently filing a lawsuit against the solenoid manufacturer, claiming it stole intellectual property belonging to SCO. Apparently, since SCO is using a solenoid in the product, and the supplier's solenoid appears identical to the solenoid SCO buys from the supplier, that is proof that the supplier stole SCO's intellectual property.
Micro$COft. Where do you want to go today?
Is America still the land of the free? Apparently not...
My little Linux and tech blog
A former CIA agent, Ed Wilson, was released from jail after 22 years because he was able to show that the government lied about his case. One of the charges that he was convicted on was selling 20 tons of C-4 to Libya.
He claimed that, even though he was no longer employed by the CIA, that he was working with them at the time. The prosecution produced a document that said he had no substantail contact with the agency after he left it. This was a lie. He had more then 80 'non-social contacts' after he left and the gonvernment knew this. The railroaded him.
His conviction on the explosive charge was overturned and he is now out of jail. He is currently involved in legal action over his false conviction.
Wilson is a scumbag. It is also likely that he was involved in running drugs for the CIA before Iran-Contra. Even so, he was raped by the CIA and DOJ. An investigation is in the works, but Wilson is already 71 and I expect that they will drag it out until he dies.
Now think about all those wire taps and how they were justified.
Check out http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id334 /pg1/
and
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Investigation/stor y?id=708779&page=1
In other news, America's population increases.
Michael Savage is the man.
1997-2004 Wiretap Reports
"Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received."
There is no mention in the article about percentages of wiretap requests approved, so why make a baseless statement like this. Instead maybe the reason for the increase is because, as the article says:
"Drug dealers now are making use not just of traditional cell phones but a variety of devices, including Blackberries, pagers, and Nextels. So most likely these increased wiretap numbers simply reflect law enforcement's continuing efforts to keep pace with both the tactics and technology that is being used on the street," said Barr.
Vote for Pedro
Thing is, I'm not scared by this article. There are 290 million people living in the United States, and a 19% increase amounts to around 273 extra wiretaps across the country. Not scary. In fact, I'm surprised that the number is 10 times larger, given that it appears to be a small fraction of the number of crimes investigated every year that should have been wiretapped.
Furthermore, it may interest you to know that the legal standard for getting a wiretap is rather high (which is why there are so few of them).
See United States Telecom Assoc. v. FCC . So how, you ask, is it that there were no wiretap requests turned down if the standard is so high, and it's used relatively rarely?Simple. It's not like the police officers are going "Hey Judge, we need a wire-tap on this guy Frank 'cuz I think he's doing "crimes" -- and we need it yesterday!" What actually happens is the police officer goes to government lawyer. The government lawyer -- who does this all the time -- then tells the police officer 9 times out of 10 that they haven't met the standard. Even that 1 time out of 10, the government lawyer approaches the judge ex parte (i.e. not in a court proceeding) which allows the judge to indicate through subtle nods and grunts that the wiretap request is half-cooked, and to come back later. So you just don't get denied applications. By the way -- denied applications are the last thing the police want, because then -- dollars to donuts (hehe) when it comes time to the criminal trial, the wiretap evidence will be considered inadmissible even if the police eventually did get their wiretap.
What Devlin Barrett, the reporter who wrote the article, should have mentioned, is how many wiretap requests were officially turned down over the last few years. But the reporter omitted this information, most likely because very few requests have been officially denied within the last decade. So the alarmist language used in the article makes it, IMHO, FUD.
Regards,
Moiche
Minor nitpick: 48% rise over 10 years would be 4% annual growth (take the tenth root of 1.48).
please mod as appropriate.
stupid trolls. probably thinks he's a clever subversive now.
That is not enough taps. We should all be tapped.
What are you with alCIAda? LE is perfect. Our loving Gov. is here to help.
Join the neighborhood watch! Report suspicious people! Join the hitler youth!
If you don't submit it will be your fault when move gov. sponsored terror strikes. Be afraid! The bad guys are out to destroy amerika!
The new freedom initiative is good! Why shouldn't we all submit to psychological testing!?
War is peace! Slavery is freedom! Patriot one, two, three are what this country needs!
Metal framed high rises do fall down, as if they were destroyed by controlled demoliton, when small fires burn for a few hours!
We have entered the twilight zone... go back to sleep america the Gov. has everything under control...
http://www.gasresources.net/DisposalBioClaims.htm
My contempt for you is only exceeded by my pity when I consider the obvious lameness of your life. I can only hope that you are the victim of a mental disorder and not such an idiot that you actually consider your editing to be clever or funny. If you were such an idiot, you might believe anonymous posting was really anonymous. Of course it could be an experiment to see if anyone catches your changes. Either way...dude...you suck. I'll take solace that, in my experience, punks with attitudes like the one your disrespect of
billy - replying to...anonymous COWARD
This was informative? How about funny? Even funnier were those who questioned the math.
RTFA not the parent.
maybe the government will reign themselves in. You know, like all those other times they did.
They've probably got enough problems governing us without also having to be governed *by* us, you know?
Show a little trust people!
With the patriot act, FBI can sieze voicemail and intercept text messages, too. I was a wiretap target last year for a while (along with other surveillance phun). pfft. damn justice department.
when you ANSWER those numbers!
Slashdot trolls increase by 19%!!
FIRST POST!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, i just had to do that.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
1. NSA is always right.
2. In doubt, see rule #1.
3. In all other cases, see rule #1.
Privacy is terrorism.
Once again I remind us of
http://tor.eff.org/
http://www.i2p.net/
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
and also
http://www.cryptophone.de/
GSM can now be decrypted in almost realtime, and the recieving hardware is only a few thousand dollars. Though personally I'd prefer a freeware OSS push to talk GPRS program because not many can make data calls
A blog I run for the wealth
All switching equipment (at least in the US) is required to be designed for wiretapping according to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). I don't recall the timeline for phase in, but I'm guessing that by now all the big names like Ericsson make only CALEA-compliant products. I'm also guessing that the same models are sold to the rest of the world.
In short, the phone network is now designed to be tapped.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I have a friend who works for a large US company (no names, but it sounds a bit like "moo-sent") which makes the cell tower equipment used by several of the large american carriers, especially Verizon with their new high-speed data service. The last time I visited his office, he showed me the CALEA (Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994) box from their in-house system mock-up (used for training Verizon's techs.)
In a normal market area, all of a carrier's towers are linked back to a single facility for the entire market, and that facility contains the links to the wireline carriers. Inside this data center, the sound channels of all of the calls on all of the towers are sorted out and routed to the appropriate wireline ports. The equipment which does this knows how to do a "wiretap"- as a call starts, if either the caller's number or the number being called are listed in a certain database, the call is set up with a copy of the audio being routed to what is essentially a WAV file. When the call is done, that WAV file is immediately emailed to whatever law enforcement person is interested.
IN THEORY, the law enforcement types are supposed to show a court order before being able to add numbers to the database. IN REALITY, the carrier (at least Verizon) provides an SSL-secured web interface where law enforcement can just go and enter the number and an email address. The carrier does not perform any verification of whether or not there is a valid court order, they stay as close to hands-off as they can.
...they don't need to decrypt. all they need to do is ask the phone company nicely, and they'll hear it in the clear...
It's not "the patriot act"; it's "the USAPATRIOT act".
if the gov had more teeth we could have stopped 9/11.. they knew the attackers were in the country, knew they were planning something because of wussies that be we couldnt do shit.. and we reaped the reward. even since 9/11 we still dont have the balls to do what needs to be done to ensure the safety of the american public.
Damn straight... you should see how the police function in other countries. For all those whineing about police brutality... go visit ANY other country and you will see just how tightly tied our cops' hands are. Close family friend who loved police work quit because of all the nonsesne that cops have to put up with now. Cant bust ppl without them ending back up on the street after posting bail... cant defend yourself by any means (nightstick, mace or GOD FORBID your gun) on any race but your own otherwise OHH NOOOO! raceism... the other man who was a different nationality than myself busted me in the face cause i was resisting arrest and hoped up on drugs .... LETS SUE! and take all hes got! Fag judge fears reprisal from 'civil rights group' and pisses his patns and sides with the suspect. Happens everyday.
..finally when the cops catch up and arrest him they say "watch your head sir" (because they are forced to say that crap)....this nation is going to hell in a handbasket...
Furthermore... I say a law should be added in the US.. where if the police have to drive either more than 5 miles, or more than 15mph above the posted speed limit that they literally beat the piss out of you when they catch you. I cant stand on "wold scariest police chases 5!" when the suspect flies down a 35 mph lane with kids on it at 110 mph
Recently it was asserted that 1 american out of 138 is behind bars1 10417&Sn=WORL&IssueID=28037
... which I really find hard to believe ...
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=
, making USA the place where that ratio is the highest in the world.
Now it's either you're more crooks and evil and violent people than all other countries
Or maybe the "land of freedom" (tm) just went to the opposite extreme? Alas, I find that very easy to believe. A raise in wiretapping just confirms that, I'd say. I really wonder what's the percentage of people wiretapped for their political views.
Anyone interested in wiretapping should see this. Shrub's miserable choice for UN Ambassador, John Bolton stars in this story.
From the story "Bolton requested transcripts of 10 NSA intercepts of conversations between named U.S. government officials and foreign persons...NSA insiders report...Bolton...had them masked as "training missions" in order to get around internal NSA regulations that...prohibit such eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.
So, not only do you have to worry about the court authorized and reported taps, but Corrupt Criminals like Bolton skirting the rules to get dirt on his (probable) opponents.
Thank God the NSA is there to protect Freedom(TM)? Right?
But when something comes up that we all know nothing about ... Hey! We're still experts, even though we actually know nothing about the field we're discussing!
Also, I apologize if this post is all bold. It was bold in the preview window but I couldn't turn it off.
- You've never been to court to see how the law really works
- You've never been on the receiving end of Police, ahem, "interaction" (no, traffic stops do not count).
I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that Real Life is not like "The Practice," "Law and Order," "TJ Hooker," or "CSI."Yeah, right.
I'll respond to the troll as AC
"During the cold war, our "rulers" tried to force a nuclear war with the Soviet Union"
You don't have to "force" a war. If Regan (for example) had wanted a nuclear war all he would have had to do was push the button. There wouldn't have been enough of the world left for him to have to worry about his image, let alone reelection.
They have been doing stuff like that long before the patriot act came into play. If you 5 minutes of any cop show or courtroom show based on actual cases you will see they no longer adhere to ANY of the basic rights of the defendants. It is now guilty until proven innocent and this stance is used to obtain evidence in any way possible. I won't even watch Cops or The Shield because it is blatant illegal activity by officers and they make it seem ok.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
WTF?
"and those warrants reached a record 1,754 last year. Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received."
So 1754 taps... out of 30 Million people.
Criminal investigations perhaps?
Pretty LOW number if you ask me...
"Nothing" is precisely what we're going to do.
That was an incredibly intelligent, well-thought post. What was inane about it?