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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.
It talks about FISA-court approved wiretaps ... how come the title says illegal?
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!
You mean This?
...on catching terrorismists!
That is the price for a legal, court ordered wiretap.
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FISA has been around since 1978. How long have you been lamenting the descent?
The opposite of progress is congress
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
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?)
JACK: Take the number of vehicles in the field (A), multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X... If X is less that the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
BUSINESS WOMAN: Are there a lot of these kinds of accident?
JACK: You wouldn't believe.
Bark less. Wag more.
On the other hand, I really hate Comcast even more now. They're allowed to charge for this? What the hell *is* that?
Believe it or not, Comcast charging the government is in your best interest. This puts a price tag on frivolous subpoenas which discourages the government from issuing broad subpoenas. This also discourages subpoenas for multiple wiretaps to be maintained indefinitely (even law enforcement must work within a budget).
An ISP with which I am familiar often provides law enforcement with a quote of the cost to fullfill subpoenas they felt were too broad or would require a significant amount of man hours (Uhmm, CPU time) to produce the requested information. Almost invariably this resulted in law enforcement reducing the scope of the subpoena in question (I.E. information about less individuals was disclosed) or they completely rescinded the subpoena.
So whether you agree that Comcast should be able to make a small profit on wiretaps, they are providing an additional layer of checks and balances to our government.
Additionally, why should the Comcast subscribers foot the bill for a public service (Note that I am not a Comcast subscriber).
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.
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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 agree. You only have to listen to the rhetoric spouted by Bush and Congress to know what they are doing is illegal. First, they tell us that nothing the phone companies have done is illegal and they have acted in "good faith". Then, they tell us because the phone companies, and this includes Comcast, have been so helpful, that they should be granted immunity from their actions retroactive back to 2001. It doesn't take Einstein to figure out that if they had done nothing wrong, then there would be no reason to grant immunity. The fact that they are asking for it means they know they acted irresponsibly with their customer's info, and illegally.
The fact that Comcast also makes money off of these wiretaps is outrageous. That's incentive for them to keep violating the Fourth Amendment whenever asked by the government, regardless of legal grounds to do so.
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