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Number of Federal Wiretaps Rose 71 Percent In 2012

Posted by timothy on from the transparent-is-the-right-word dept.

cold fjord writes "Looks like last year was pretty busy. I wonder how many were leaks and media? From the Washington Post: 'The number of wiretaps secured in federal criminal investigations jumped 71 percent in 2012 over the previous year, according to newly released figures. Federal courts authorized 1,354 interception orders for wire, oral and electronic communications, up from 792 the previous year, ... There was a 5 percent increase in state and local use of wiretaps in the same period. ... There is no explanation of why the federal figures increased so much, and it is generally out of line with the number of wiretaps between 1997 and 2009, which averaged about 550 annually. There was also a large number of wiretaps in 2010, when 1,207 were secured. A single wiretap can sweep up thousands of communications. One 30-day local wiretap in California, for instance, generated 185,268 cellular telephone interceptions, of which 12 percent were incriminating, according to the report. The vast majority of the wiretaps in both federal and state cases were obtained as part of drug investigations, and they overwhelmingly were directed at cellphones ... Only 14 court orders were for personal residences. Most jurisdictions limit the period of surveillance to 30 days, but extensions can be obtained.'"

17 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Seems a bit low... by kc9jud · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought the number was supposed to be around 300 million...

    1. Re:Seems a bit low... by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Hello, Thailand? How's everything on your end? Uh, huh. Say, that's some language you got there. You talk like that 24/7?"

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:Seems a bit low... by meta-monkey · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, now they just sweep up all communications, guilty until incidentally shown to be innocent (at which point they'll keep it anyway), the default option seems to be if you are communicating with anyone, for any reason, you're probably up to something.

      Pretty soon they'll hook up the automated drones to the intercepts database. Since you're a foreigner (ie: terrrrist) calling into the US, it'll go something like "Hello? USA? Just makin' a prank..." *INCOMING DRONE STRIKE*

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    3. Re:Seems a bit low... by phrostie · · Score: 2

      That we know of

    4. Re: Seems a bit low... by Mabhatter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The NSA never needed wiretaps, they were SPIES. The problem is that the Patriot Act opened the gates to regular (police and FBI) law enforcement having access to shared toys the NSA and CIA used to use, but more importantly the TRAINING regime shifted to using spying and subterfuge rather than direct investigation and face time with citizens. The biggest shift is that Peace Officers went from being people on the street we knew, to lions that pick off the weak critters in the night.

      Back on topic, the NSA is something regular folks never really will ever deal with. The NSA and CIA play hunches and probabilities all the time...basing lots of actions on race, sex, income, religion, Slashdot posts, etc... Knowing that all that data just adds dice to the "probability your crazy pool" none of it STOPS YOU from being the bad guy who rolls all '1' to give the worst outcome today... But odds are you aren't that guy out of 300 million. REGULAR POLICE have no business first having access to that info because its ILLEGAL, and second have no training or the psych profile to handle knowing such things about people. Lots of people have traits of serial killers, even multiple traits... But serial killers are still a small fraction of actual people with bad traits. Regular people as police aren't trained and conditioned mentally to understand that. So all this data collection is worse than meaningless because they really are not capable of processing it properly.

    5. Re:Seems a bit low... by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      Dude you ain't telling me nothing, my ex was a phone operator that sold vacation packages and I swear I would be sitting there waiting for her to get off work and I'd hear over her headset "Hey yuse guys gotta hear this gal talk, she sounds like them gone with the wind chicks!" or something to that effect, I swear she made more sales up north strictly because they loved to hear her thick southern belle voice.

      But I wouldn't live up north on a bet, I have heard just about every accent known to man and yankee accents are just grating on the ear, its waaay too clipped and fast, not musical at all. I can deal with west coast, FLA, but yankee accents to me are like fingernails on a chalkboard so i don't know how you stand it.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. An easy answer... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is no explanation of why the federal figures increased so much

    Because we can!

    --Obama

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:An easy answer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      On a German protester's sign when Obama visted Berlin weeks ago...

      Picture of Obama with caption:
      Yes We Scan!

    2. Re:An easy answer... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Haha... More power to the Germans! (But not too much, mind you.)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:An easy answer... by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 2

      Well, why not? It was only last year that the Republicans stopped blaming Clinton for everything.

      However, on a serious note, Bush was definitely part of the problem, but only a part in a chain of what seems like increasing governmental paranoia and abuse. I still think we have more to fear from our government than we do from terrorists. For instance, the FBI was aware of a plan to assassinate organizers of the Occupy movement in Texas and did nothing about it. Think about that. A legal, non-violent protest was targeted for the ultimate in deprival of civil rights and the FBI did nothing about it.

      http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130102/09481421547/fbi-working-with-banks-chose-not-to-inform-occupy-leadership-assassination-plot-its-leaders.shtml

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    4. Re:An easy answer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      His administration bears some blame, yes.

      You are a total idiot. Just bend down and kiss Obama's ass some more. People like you are the problem, you won't hold ANYONE responsible because "your guy" might get caught up in it.

      The IRS targets GOP only, the DOJ targets GOP only, the EPA targets GOP only. And all of it is ignored with your "both parties are equally bad" BS. No, they are not equally bad. I won't get harrassed by the IRS if I donate to the DNC, right there shows that the worst corruption comes from one direction, not both.

  3. 2012 by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Was an election year.

  4. The War on the War on the War on the War... by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seems like an awful lot of our social (and budget) problems are caused by the over-the-top enforcement methods of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror.

    I would suggest a War on The War on Things, but since the War on Drugs only gets us more drug problems and the War on Terror only seems to be making more terrorists, the War on The War on Things will only wind up producing more Wars on Things.

    Hence, I propose The War on The War on the War on Things. That should fix it, right?

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  5. Crime is down trending by mrmeval · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Law enforcement has traditionally gone after low hanging fruit. They don't like pissing off the really nasty ones who would kill them, their families and their cat Fluffy. They're fishing for justification to continue to exist. That's what all the terrorist crap is about and why they'll continue to expand domestic crimes as terrorism.

    Soon it will be illegal to report on crop failures, droughts, civic unrest, midnight arrests etc. etc. as that will be facilitating terrorism.

    --
    I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
    1. Re:Crime is down trending by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're fishing for justification to continue to exist.

      And more important, there is a lot of money to be made.

      There are suburbs in Virginia where every single household is involved in the surveillance state. And the sweetest part of the deal is that the money comes entirely off-budget, because of course, if you're going to have a secret program, you know the appropriations to pay for it have to be secret too, because freedom.

      I'm not even sure that the US government really has much control over the police state apparatus any more. And don't doubt for a second that the data collected will end up in the hands of private corporations, for god knows what.

      Unfortunately, the surveillance regime, the kill lists, the extra-Constitutional domestic spying, the data mining and the "partnering" with private security contractors has now cost the US every bit of moral authority they once had over countries like North Korea.

      We can no longer claim any high ground, when you've created an apparatus that the East German secret police could have only dreamed about.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  6. more than doubled by raymorris · · Score: 2, Informative

    "perhaps some some expanding"
    Is that what you call "more than doubled"?

    Bush sucked. He outspent. Obama more than doubled the deficit.
    Bush supported questionable intelligence gathering. Obama more than doubled it, actually recording more cometh medications between US citizens than foreign communications.

    By any objective measure, Bush sucked, then Obama sucked twice as much.

  7. Re:HOPE AND CHANGE!! by mooingyak · · Score: 2

    Good thing we don't have those damn evil repubs in office anymore.

    If this (or drone attacks, or more troops in Afghanistan, etc.) happened while GWB was in office, liberals would be going crazy, and screaming their heads off.

    Because it Obummer in office, the so-called liberals will look the other way.

    No we won't, idiot. If anything, we're even MORE pissed.

    The sad part is that he's right. There are exceptions, but those of us who see as many problems with Bush as with Obama are few are and far between. There are things going on now that were happening 8 years ago and the US right didn't give a fuck because their guy was doing it, but now they bitch. These are the same things that got the US left all hot bothered back then and are quiet about now. There is a depressingly large amount of tribalism in US politics. That you, as a liberal, are upset about things Obama is doing unfortunately makes you the exception rather than the rule.

    --
    William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.