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Government Accuses Sprint of Overcharging For Wiretapping Expenses

Posted by Unknown on from the funding-unfunded-mandates dept.

realized writes with news that the Federal government thinks Sprint overcharged them $21 million when billing for wiretaps. From the article: "Sprint, like all the nation's carriers, must comply with the Communications Assistance in Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which requires telcos to be capable of providing government-ordered wiretapping services. The act also allows carriers to recoup 'reasonable expenses' associated with those services. Sprint inflated charges approximately 58 percent between 2007 and 2010, according to a lawsuit the administration brought against the carrier today. ... The suit said that the wireless carrier breached Federal Communications Commission guidelines of 2006 that prohibited carriers from using intercept charges to recover costs of modifying 'equipment, facilities or services' to comply with the Communications Assistance in Law Enforcement Act."

7 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Well, at least... by Bin_jammin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the government now gets to experience the same bill-creep the rest of us poor suckers have been subject to all this time.

    1. Re:Well, at least... by pla · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You misunderstand... This has nothing to do with the special unconstitutional "buy the board new gold-plated helicopters and we'll looks the other way for 15 minutes while your techs play in our server room" spying on American citizens.

      This involves the run-of-the-mill unconstitutional "We spy on you plebes, suck it" police spying that the telecoms have to support per some random BS rights-stripping law from a decade or so back.

      Easy to mix them up, but do try to keep up with which TLA has fucked you today, it matters which organization has to throw your complaint away!


      / Well, at least someone in the government listens - If not necessarily quite how we want...

  2. clearly breached by zlives · · Score: 4, Insightful

    well at least they didn't do anything illegal like wiretap the whole nation without cause or warrant.

  3. Re:Refund on overhearing my pizza order by msauve · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tea is not an acronym. Why are you spelling it in all caps?

    Also, WTF are you trying to say? That they don't like "taxing your local business," or they don't like "outsourcing the cost of law enforcement to the private sector," or both?

    It sure seems like your hatred of whatever you think the tea party is, is getting in the way of any rational argument.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  4. Illegal Illegals by pubwvj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So the government is telling us that it is illegal to over charge for an illegal service provided. Hmm...

  5. Re:Refund on overhearing my pizza order by khallow · · Score: 1, Insightful

    But since the TEA party doesn't like that, they called it something else.

    So do you also dislike having the government tax your local business in order to pay for illegal government spying activities? Or is this just a TEA party thing?

  6. I find the entire premise to be ludicrous by Otis+B.+Dilroy+III · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Are they somehow expecting honor among thieves?