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US Wiretap Report Released
sTeF writes "According to the 2010 Wiretap Report (Pdf), released today by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC) federal and state requests for court permission to intercept or wiretap electronic communications increased 34% in 2010 over 2009. California, New York, and New Jersey accounted for 68% of all wire taps approved by state judges."
That 34% doesn't include the ones you're not supposed to know about.
Had you actually bothered to read the PDF or the article, you would have known that most of these wiretaps (~84%) involved drugs, not terrorism. Furthermore, court ordered wiretaps are perfectly legal, ethical, and in keeping with the spirit of the constitution (provided, of course, there is due cause, and you have no reason to suspect that there wasn't. As I said, terrorism seems not to have even been mentioned in the vast, vast number of cases) and, you know, necessary. The pretty regular increase over the past 10 years is pretty much in keeping with what you would expect given the ever increasing prevalence of electronic communication via cell phones, IMs, etc. Nothing to see here, stop spreading your FUD. Its not the government using terrorism as an excuse, though they do that plenty of other times, its law enforcement doing what its more or less supposed to do, which is bust large, well-organized crime rings. Hell, the largest operation involved a corruption investigation. Woulda though /. would be all for busting corrupt politicians.
P.S. oh, and the number of intercepts actually went down in 2008 from 2007, and 2003 from 2002 (though only barely there), so please, get your facts straight. Using caps does not make your "facts" any less false.
New York and New Jersey are huge mafia states, so I can easily see why the have wiretap increases.
You are correct. In 2009, law enforcement was still completely unaware of the mob activity in NY and NJ. But after they got HBO, it's opened their eyes to a lot of the shenanigans going on around here. They'll have the miscreants sorted out in no time - 2, 3 months max.
The reason terrorism is relevant is because it is regularly used as justification for loosening wiretap restrictions. If the wiretaps aren't actually being used for terrorism, the justification is bogus. Your claim about the rise in wiretaps being due to the rise in electronic communication is completely wrong; in case you haven't noticed the telephone is over 100 years old and has been the normal mode of communication for many decades. If mobiles were the cause of the increase, you'd expect a very high number of "roving" wiretaps, but the report lists only a tiny number. Likewise, online accounts are a poor explanation since wiretap orders can cover multiple technologies. But your worst "reasoning" is in your postscript, where you try to imply that two year-to-year decreases prove there is no upward trend. A glance at the graphe is sufficient to nuke that allegation; it's obvious that there is noise in the data but the trend is upward (and although it's too early to be sure, there seems to be an explosion going on since Obama took office).
The greatest fear of the current US administration isn't terrorists, it's their own citizens. Terrorists aren't going to rise up and throw them out of office or worse, American citizens are.
So while they're not saying anything about who they're tapping (other than the usual bogeymen) it's YOU they're worried about. They're looking for revolutionary groups forming so they can wipe them out while they're still small. They've got a good thing going for themselves and their select group of cronies and they're not about to let you interfere with it.
You won't hear about it much; national security, you know. As long as they can keep most of it secret and keep you thinking that everything is OK, they'll continue to live a luxurious life and get away with whatever they want to do.