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Comcast Charges $1000 Per Wiretap
It seems trashing the Fourth Amendment is very profitable:
For one company, FISA wiretaps carry a $1K pricetag
Comcast, which is among the nation's largest telecommunication companies, charges $1,000 to install a FISA wiretap and $750 for each additional month authorities want to keep an eye on suspects, according to the company's Handbook for Law Enforcement. Secrecy News obtained the document and published it Monday.
posted before?
It talks about FISA-court approved wiretaps ... how come the title says illegal?
Why should they do it for free anyway? It's not like they are working for the government.
On one hand, I find FISA absolutely disgusting and weep as our mighty country has fallen into tyranny and darkness.
On the other hand, I really hate Comcast even more now. They're allowed to charge for this? What the hell *is* that?
If I get pulled over by an officer for speeding, can I send his department a bill for the time of mine he used up while writing me a ticket?
the tax payers will ultimately be the ones paying for this ... again.
just add on some more stuff, why don't they?
throw in a $20k toilet seat to while you're at it; the government doesn't care.
I'd have to hope that the costs of losing customers would cause a greater net loss to the companies than they could obtain in profits. I'm not sure how the American telcos operate or compete, over in the UK at least it's fairly easy to switch to another company for phone services.
After announcing this, they notified the black market that it would be $2,000.00 a month to notify people being illegally tapped that they were being illegally tapped.
When confronted by the govt, they let them know that secrecy, much like their internet connection uptime, is in no way guaranteed under the current terms.
For guaranteed privacy, it is $5,000.00 per month. However, if they only listen on nights and weekends, the fee is slightly reduced.
Talk about creating shareholder value!
voip telephony. Looks like the $400 a year cell phone bill is here to stay... DAMN IT I DON'T EVEN LIVE IN THE U.S.!
I've got a short list of people for whom I'd cheerfully pay $1000 to get a wiretap transcript on. Let's see, Dick Cheney, Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas...
I piss off bigots.
Uncle sam is watching you.....for a price (300,000,000 x 1,000). I wonder if there is a bulk order discount.
...because they resisted the NSA.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Eventually the taxpayer pays for his own wiretapping. Oh the irony. Nothing new though, the taxpayers pays for tax collection & enforcement, cute but sad.
\u262D = \u5350
...on catching terrorismists!
That is the price for a legal, court ordered wiretap.
Test your net with Netalyzr
If it truly a FISA wiretap, than the authorities obtained a warrant from a judge. What Bush does with warrantless wiretaps are *not* FISA wiretaps because no warrants are involved.
Now, if you want to debate the Constitutionality of a FISA wiretap, that is a valid discussion, but the story does not even contain the word illegal anywhere. Read your own frakking article, and try to keep your story truthful.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
The article's title and the blurb conflict. FISA is a law that provides a framework for issuing wiretap orders on the down-low. Wiretap orders obtained under the FISA law's requirements are, uh, obtained lawfully (although I do not like the law, it still *is* a law). Are these illegal wiretaps or not?
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
Irrespective of someone's personal beliefs, the government did pass this Orweillian law like it or not. So legally they're not "illegal wiretaps". With that said even the article specifies this: Upon lawful request and for a thousand dollars, Comcast, Don't be fooled though, for anyone who hasn't worked at an ISP, prior to implementing CALEA crap, any wiretap costs a company money. What do you think the feds are going to say "we need X tapped" and resources would automagically appear to configure parameters. So for the trolls overhyping this issue with crafty headlines, get a clue and RTFA
Infiltrated dot Net
So this is like when Ford decided that if each Pinto that exploded cost them less than 11 million USD in lawsuits, it was still worth producing the cars?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If you would like to tap my internet and phones, I can cut out the middle man and give you what you need for a one-time setup cost of $600, and the low low price of $450 per month.
(Now, if the monitoring program is secret, what can the IRS do if I don't report that income?)
Yup ... just one week ago. It was easily found with just "comcast" in the search page.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They are dealing with the Federal government. It may cost $990 to do the papaerwork.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
With all the crap we customers are putting up with (constant rate increases, lousy service, high prices, lack of privacy, ridiculous usage filtering), the only way Comcrap is going to lose customers is if there is some sort of competition.
Currently, they have, essentially, a monopoly in most areas. In my neighborhood, DSL only became available recently and really only through SBC (hiding behind the AT&T name). The "service" is an 1/8th of the speed for barely any less monthly rate.
Believe me, if there was any way to get decent internet without paying Comcrap for it, I'd be doing it. And I'm sure a LOT of other folks would, too.
Jory
Wait, forget the fact that FISA does allow the government to wiretap individuals legally following certain guidelines.
Isn't the bigger problem the fact that this happens apparently so often that Comcast has a pricing structure for it? I mean, if it happened irregularly, Comcast would probably eat the cost as part of being a good citizen.
Damn! The Constitution was such a magnificent document, too.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
If Comcast are as process driven as BT, they will have a cost for every line item that's been repeated more than twice, and let's not fool ourselves here, they've done it more than that.
> "Without pay, I would bet the lag time would be long.. As a private company with a task to perform, the unpaid task would be bottom priority like most of their coustomer service requests."
Always follow the money ...
Or in this case, "there's no whore like an old whore ..." (f*cking your customers for $1k + $750/m, like Comcast customers aren't already screwed enough ...)
Modeled after all those movies on clandestine, stalker boyfriend movies... the illegal wiretap must be done as follows:
1. Buy a white utility van. Buy a blue -not black- uniform so no one can see you under the streetlight. Your company name should have pizza or florist in it.
2. Climb utility pole. Connect phone line to your headphones. Its not more technical than this. Now you hear all the phone conversations.
3. ????
4. Profit!!!
The document was posted on Slashdot last week, or longer. It was a document outlining Comcast policy towards requests for user information. The fees were further down in the document - sounds standard to me. They have to post it somewhere, they can't just say "um...hmm, well, how 'bout $750 and we'll do it for you".
www.wildpad.com
Best line from the article:
"I was actually surprised that this was such a routine transaction that it would have a set fee," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.
Two things that I find strange. First, take this out of the context of FISA. If a state prosecutor, say, subpoenas records from a private business, do they routinely pay said business for the processing? Generally speaking, it seems that when a court orders something, you don't get paid for the time or effort. Even if you hire a lawyer to handle the subpoena process you don't get reimbursed for that. Maybe someone with some inside knowledge can fill me in here, but wouldn't you have to file a petition to have any processing costs refunded?
Second thing that's a little quirky, why is there a maintenance fee? Why is there an initial cost? I wouldn't think that it's Comcast's own techs doing the surveillance. After all, when phone lines are tapped Verizon guys don't do the tapping. Is it to compensate for lost bandwidth? Doesn't seem likely. Again, if someone knows better, please fill me in, but it seems a bit strange that Comcast is able to charge money to allow the government to perform court-ordered surveillance.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
Having anonymous unelected judges meeting in secret, passing secret rulings that rewrite foreign-intelligence law is scary. Congress should have never removed responsibility from our elected representatives by creating FISA. Somehow I don't think that's what the OP had in mind though.
End the Stealth Government
Right. FISA is lawful and arguably consitutional. The big question is how much Comcast charges for illegal wiretaps. (Maybe that's why Bush has been circumventing FISA, to save money!)
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
It is now 9:35am and the title of the write-up has already been revised — without even the customary note to the effect — but the write-up itself still laments the "thrashing of the Fourth Amendment".
Apparently, there is nothing the Law Enforcement part of the government can do, that would be "legal" in the predominant opinion here.
All things considered, that's, probably, a good thing — even if incorrect or exaggerated...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
When quoting the fourth amendment to the constitution, you should quote the whole thing:
FISA violates that by being a secret court. It is, in fact, a kind of star chamber and is particularly unAmerican. The whole idea behind the fourth amendment is to protect you from arbitrary or politically motivated violations. Three or four unaccountable people say so is no "reasonable" grounds for a search in a real democracy.
It's an open secret that wiretapping has far exceeded the bounds of FISA charade. The phones of newsmen have been tapped and other intercepts have been made to find "leakers" in the Plame Wilson Scandal.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Commie-castic !!
There a discount package on illegal wire tapping if you sign up for the Big Brother Deluxe Program
Its not the years, its the mileage
The phone companies must love criminals then, this is probably ~10 months or so bills per month, nice. That is why I mention Al Queda and Jihad in every phone call, I want to run up the FBI/NSA bill :)
75 year old takes a hammer to Comcast.
Who is RTFM and when will he help me with Unix?
. . . that these wiretaps exist, or that they happen so often there's a rate sheet for them.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Hey, Comcast, here's the deal. You give me the highest tier of Triple Play and all the premium channels for free, and I'll keep sprinkling "Osama Bin Laden", "Echelon", "terrorism", and other keywords into my Internet usage to keep the Feds interested. I won't even ask for a cut of what's left of the $750.
I mean seriously, if the Feds are going to listen anyway <cough>AT&T</cough> I might as well get something out of it.
Well, shit. For $1,000 I'd tap my own line!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Page 58 of http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0613/final.pdf shows that $1K is pretty reasonable, depending on the type of wiretap. On page 56 of the report, it notes that $250 is typical for easy taps. However, the table on page 58 shows that $2200 is a lot more in line with certain types. Wiretapping is harder than it looks. The telecomm provider is typically responsible for making sure that the law enforcement agency (LEA) gets exactly what it is supposed to get, neither more nor less. They have to provide 24/7 support. In some cases, the LEA tries to prevent them from doing routine maintenance because doing things like rebooting switches drops taps. Depending on the particular type of tap, they're working for their $1000.
I'll allow the government to monitor my cable line (internet, TV and voice) at a significant savings: order now at the low low rate of $695/month for the first 12 months, and we'll waive the $1000 setup fee! At prices like this, can you afford NOT to eavesdrop?!?
.nosig
I think a lot of people, including mr Aftergood, misunderstand the issue. The fact that there is a rate fee does not necessarily mean that it is such a common or even streamlined task. Ive been involved in this matter with an ISP in europe, where these things are already in law, and I think comcast is doing the right thing. By charging a fee, they make sure that there is at least some form of financial incentive for the police and/or justice department not to go overboard on wiretaps. And not only that, it can also be used to pay for the costs of the necessary infrastructure. This is not stuff you just buy at your local IT vendor, but needs to be implemented on a per-ISP bases in many cases. Wiretapping individual customers on 10 gbit meshed network with many redundant links is not trivial, especially if you want to make absolutely sure it holds up in court. The technology to do this is quite expensive, and needs to be paid by someone. In europe unfortunately most of the time that 'someone' is the ISP, and thus the customer. Governments have made wiretapping the financial responsibility of the ISP, which is really quite bad. Im glad to see Comcast was able to secure a payment from the government instead.
Now, this is ofcourse separate from the issue of the fact if these types of wiretaps should be allowed in the first place. In many cases that battle has already been fought, and lost. Expect big brother to watch, and expand its possibilities significantly. In europe, they're already talking about legal datamining in all the combined government and private sector databases,
make your vote count,
Cor
The problem with your argument is that, you have this implicit assumption that the Congress is allowed to make whatever law it wants to. It cannot. The Constitution is not a document that says what rights we the people have. It is a document that enumerates the limited powers of the federal government. Wiretapping and intercepting the communications of an American citizen is not a power specifically granted to the Congress by the Constitution, and therefor, wiretaps and FISA courts, all of that stuff, is unconstitutional.
The Bill of Rights was NEVER intended to be the enumeration of our rights that it has been stated to be, and wrongly, by both political parties. The founding fathers were QUITE clear on this issue and Madison and Jefferson both opposed the Bill of Rights because they were rightly worried that such a statement of rights would in fact be used to undermine the Constitution, and it has. You have a right to own guns.. you have a right to be gay and get married... the government has no right to wiretap you...
The founding fathers were libertarians.
This is my sig.
Why can't they just catpure the stream at the PBX and email the daily mp3 files to the interested party?
...was a thousand typical slashdot moonbat heads exploding.
Now *this* is the way to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Slashdot. Not only is this posting worded to stir up a story where there is none, its a dupe!
Maybe they can sell a collection of dupes and over-hyped stories on eBay...
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
As a company (business entity), can't Comcast charge WHATEVER it wants for the taps? It's not like the government can just take its business elsewhere for wiretaps....
Long ago taxes were used as a means of getting people not to do things. Why doesn't comcast charge $1,000,000 per tap, to make the government unable to afford it as frequently as they do?
They have to get exactly the right data, neither more nor less. So if they have a tap/trace warrant, they can get only the phone number that the target calls or is called from. If they have a content warrant then they can have the content of the call, but not the content of any other calls. In some cases, they can tap based on content. So they can listen for a short period of time, say for example one minute, and then if they hear nothing related to the subject of the wiretap then they have to break the connection.
;-) I've been researching the legal implications of various wiretap-related things as part of another project and it's really complex and interesting.
It's all pretty interesting. Let's say that The Man has a warrant that lets Him find the number being called from a particular phone. Easy, no? No. What if the target has a calling card that he uses to call an 800 number, then keys in the number of his calling card and the actual destination of the call. Are those post-dial digits part of the call content, in which case a tap/trace will not allow them to gather that data, or is it part of the call destination, in which case law enforcement is permitted to collect those because it relates to the destination of the call? What if he sets call forwarding on a particular phone and then calls that phone. Can law enforcement get the out-of-band signalling that would tell them where the call is really going?
Let me know if you'd like me to post, oh, 37 GB on this topic.
It is? when I was doing monitoring for the Army (early 80s) we just had the telco guys in the central office connect those lines into a punch block in the room we used. Then we'd just hook our gear to that block. I'd think with computerized switches it would be a lot easier, but haven't been in that business for a while so could be completely wrong on that.
The Tao that can be spoken is not the one eternal Tao
Well, if it's too expensive, the guvmint can always go to the competition, right?
// This is not a sig.
Life was good then. ;-) These days, it might not even be possible to identify the central exchange in use. For that matter, there might not even be a central exchange (e.g., unmanaged VoIP).
Comcast carries a lot of VoIP traffic. In the circuit switch days to which you refer, calls traveled over a dedicated circuit, meaning that there were two endpoints and every part of the call traversed exactly the same path through the system. (Dedicated circuit is different from a dedicated wire - obviously, you don't get your own wire from you to anyone. But once the path through the system is set up, the call traverses that path until the call is ended.) So it was an if-and-only-if setup. Everything in the call went through that circuit, and everything in that circuit related to the call.
With VoIP, there's all sorts of data moving along the line. The restrictions that law enforcement folk are only allowed to see exactly what the warrant covers creates an interesting problem for them. Without looking at each packet, they can't tell if a particular packet is one of the VoIP packets that they're allowed to see, and if they look at each packet then they are certain to see things that they aren't allowed to see. Open a packet... goodie, it's a VoIP packet from the target of the tap; open another packet... OOPS! it's part of an email message, quick, everyone close your eyes!
Further, they've got to get their tap in place before the packets have a chance to do that random-path-through-the-internet thing that they do. Add in TOR, encryption, chaffing, Slurper-looking-things spreading the packets over multiple networks and you've got interesting problems (if you're law enforcement) or opportunities (if you're not particular interested in solving law enforcement's problems).
I'm perfectly willing to share with the government my phone conversations with telemarketers and my mother for the low low price of $1k. They'll probably get a kick out of me and the telemarketers. :3 When you get the same recorded message three times a day telling you the warranty on your non-existent car is about to expire...you get creative with what you say before hanging up. ;)
;P
Ugh, I can't believe I typo'd my subject
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
How Much are the non-FISA wire taps? We're selling them on ebay in lots of ten and giving away priceless babylonian artifacts as part of the package. If you're interested, check out our ebay store. You can find them under the user name jstalin. P.S. Customer service is handled though the alt.fascism news group.
Actually, intercepting communications of American citizens is explicitly allowed in the Fourth Amendment, with a valid warrant. (That limitation doesn't even apply in the case of foreign communications - that's simply called espionage.) All that the Constitution requires for the issuance of a warrant is "probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized". As long as that criteria is fulfilled, then the warrant is valid.
There is no requirement that the warrant be public, nor are there strictly any constitutional requirements on who has to issue the warrant (although traditionally that is done by either a judge or a justice of the peace).
Moreover, the power to pass FISA is covered in the Constitution, Article III Section 1: "The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." Because the FISA court doesn't try either criminal or civil cases (it is limited to issuing warrants and reviewing classified materials, not conducting trials), there is no need to involve a jury, and no need to publicize any aspects of its actions.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it is unconstitutional.
Sorry but you make this sound far more complicated than it actually is. Your VOIP provider simply routes packets based on the IP of the user making or receiving the call. It's trivial to route those packets to more than one location without the party being serveiled having any knowledge whatsoever what is going on. This is true of all modern (i.e., digital) forms of communication. Taps were only difficult in the analog world.
As for content oriented taps...that is managed by law enforcement. If they hear things not covered by the content of the tap, it is up to them to disconnect from the conversation...not the phone company/ISP.
It's different when your company is being subpoenaed for something relating to a crime they committed. However this is a case where the company in question isn't accused of a crime at all, they are being ordered to help investigate one. Ok fine, but you can't very well say they should have to do that for free, especially if they have to do it often. The police and courts can't just say "This related to a criminal investigation, we get everything for free."
I mean consider another case: Suppose the cops suspect your neighbour of doing something evil. They want to investigate this further, and it turns out that your house would provide an ideal surveillance location. Should they be allowed to just barge in and demand to use it for free? Of course not, doesn't matter that it is related to a crime, it isn't related to you at all. However they could certainly ask you if you'd let them use your house and perhaps there'd be money involved in that.
If you look at state laws you'll generally find statutes specifically saying that 3rd parties involved in subpoenas shall be reimbursed for their costs related to that. It is just a necessity, otherwise these companies would fight and probably win. As it is, if they are well paid for the costs, they lose the ability to argue about it. You can't very well say it's too expensive for you to do if they are paying you for it.
99% of the referenced document refers to CALEA, not FISA. These are ordinary, run-of-the-mill, catch-a-criminal wiretaps. The sort that are ordered VIA WARRANT for drug lords, mob figures and anyone else using the telephone in the furtherance of a criminal operation.
Gosh, do you think there might actually be some CRIME going on in US cities? Of course not, since Bush took office all crime is now centralized in the White House, right? Do you actually believe that there is so little crime going on that these wiretaps must be for political reasons rather than criminal?
And on the usual happy think-of-the-children note, wiretaps in relation to child exploitation are free. So all you need is a naked nine-year-old in the picture and wiretaps are free.
If Comcast is able to charge for this, then it means that Comcast knows when it's happening. Maybe their help is even needed, to implement the tap.
That means the process has a step where a non-government party can say, "Let me see the court order." That doesn't necessarily mean they're doing that, but at least it's a potential check against illegal stuff.
One of my fears is that LE can do this stuff without anyone ever knowing they did it, whether they have a warrant or not. Fish away, and then, in the rare instance when they actually find some evidence that they'd like to use in court, go get the warrant as a legal ass-covering move.
This story suggests that might not be the case. I guess it depends on what "requiring deployment of an intercept device" really means. Just what is that device?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Honestly, I agree with the practice of charging the government for these sorts of things though. It is better that they charge law enforcement than that they pass the cost on to the customers.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
$1,000 is a lot of dough, but is it unreasonable?
Consider that:
- a "mediation" device such as found at http://www.ss8.com/, that may cost you more than $100,000 a crack.
- each request will require legal dept oversight, and support resources.
- the cost of expensive software upgrades for vendors where lawful intercept is an upsell; or perhaps hardware upgrades that are only necessary to support lawful intercept functionality.
- despite the great cost, the capabilities are not actually used very frequently.
Compare this with the data at http://www.uscourts.gov/library/wiretap.html
In 2006, there were a total of 1,839 authorized wiretaps, and only 1,714 that were actually installed.
Total number of days in operation is 68,380, which gives an average of roughly 40 days per wiretap.
Now consider that 1685 out of 1839 wiretap orders were for mobile devices (i.e. not Comcast).
This leaves about 139 other taps, some of which Comcast might be involved with.
At Comcast's rates, that would come up to 139 * $1,000 = $139,000. With a 40 day average, you're looking at 46 * $750 = $34,500 in additional month fees. This brings you to a total of $173,500 per year for nationwide US non-wiretap fees.
Comcast can't be recovering anything close to the full cost of their intercept expense from these fees.
You rock... I agree 100%, better to be an honest troll then a stupid prole!
Ex Parte and the right to confront your accusers
Since when were "communications" classified as places, persons, or things? It's nonsensical to talk about siezing a physical instance of a conversation, therefore the Constitution does not allow wiretapping!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
At the time, communications were primarily in the form of letters, which are both "papers" and "things" last I checked.
I'm no financial wiz, but with Comcast being a publicly listed company wouldn't it be possible to see how much they've earned from this specific venture - and consequently how many taps they've implemented? Might be interesting to compare the figures year-by-year.
There are 10 kinds of people; those who know ternary, those who don't, and those now hunting for a dictionary.
I am a prosecutor, and I routinely subpoena documents from companies. I have subpoenaed everything from personnel records, bank records, and phone records. Bottom line: if a company includes an invoice for copy or processing fees, and the fee is reasonable, they get paid. Not all companies bill me for their costs; but the ones who do will eventually get a check (usually after the case is over).