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Government Accuses Sprint of Overcharging For Wiretapping Expenses
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."
the government now gets to experience the same bill-creep the rest of us poor suckers have been subject to all this time.
Not sure if this is laugh or crying material.
Sig? Heil
Would be funny if it weren't so insidious.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
well at least they didn't do anything illegal like wiretap the whole nation without cause or warrant.
What I don't get is why there is an FCC ruling forbidding telcos from being able to bill the government for modifications to their equipment to comply with the law?!?!? So it basically comes down to an unfunded mandate probably passed down to the very customers the government is spying on.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
They should have kept better track of their usage. They could have upgraded to a plan with more included wiretaps, or even considered one of the "Shared Family Wiretap" plans.
I just love it when one crook accuses another crook of being crooked.
As George Carlin would say, "Now THAT'S entertainment!"
As I currently battle my own Sprint bill, none of this surprises me. I'll bet the government didn't notice the enormous surcharges on their bill. I know someone who worked in their billing\customer service department. They said the level of billing abnormalities they saw was astonishing. This person had to give money to most people calling in about their bill while correcting things and promising it wouldn't happen again. When this person considered the millions who never looked at their bills and who were probably being sometimes overcharged, this person quit out of moral dilemma.
The way they do billing is understandably complicated for many. If the government had just called in for a $21 million credit, they might have received it after an escalation or two.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
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
So the government is telling us that it is illegal to over charge for an illegal service provided. Hmm...
Tea is not an acronym.
As used, incorrect.
It stands for "Taxed Enough Already".
Actually it's Taxed Enough Already, but I'm sure you knew that.
Take the telco to court and in open court
divulge ALL the demands made on the telco.
The telco can open with an itemized list of all N ...... .....
secret wattents. Something like:
FISA #1 wiretap on 50,000 unnamed individuals $1.00
knowing where to tap 50,000 unnamed individuals $5000000
FISA #2
FISA #N
Summary:
Total (N*$1)+Sum(KnowingWhereValues from 1..N)
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Maybe next time, the feds will wise up and get a month-to-month pay in advance eavesdropping plan and avoid bill shock.
I am not a crackpot.
Are they somehow expecting honor among thieves?
I hope you're not implying that having a (D) in charge instead of an (R) would make a difference. Both parties are full of filth.
Love sees no species.
Tea is not an acronym.
As used, incorrect.
It stands for "Taxed Enough Already".
That's a backronym, not an acronym.
I could just as easily claim it stood for Tossers, Eejits and Arseholes... which would still be entirely accurate.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The same is true of comms here in Australia, where in order to obtain a carriers license, equipment must have certain features available for law enforcement purposes according to a set spec defined by the ACMA. There are also various data retention policies.
However, when the government makes drastic and expensive changes to infrastructure requirements for their own desires, there's an expectation that they foot the bill for changes to existing gear. After all, they ARE the customers for these features. Funding it out of government/law enforcement budgets accurately reflects the costs of the enforcement.
Retrofitting configuration on to existing infrastructure can be very expensive compared to rolling out new kit, requiring changes from the management systems all the way to the network gear itself, testing/QA and so on. You're not just fiddling with ACLs or enabling netflows.