Monday, January 14, 2008

I'd like to reverse the charges please ...

FBI wiretaps dropped due to unpaid bills
This calls for some yankee ingenuity



 Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

"We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. [AP Story]

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Darn! There goes my "Who's calling?" "This is the FBI" prank phone calls for the time being. I mean, who's gonna believe me?

DrMadjack said...

66,000 in just one office. Just how much wiretapping are they doing.

Bob Hawkins said...

Also, it's a tipoff when the operator breaks in and says "Deposit another 75 cents for an additional three minutes of recording."

(Kids with cellphones don't even know what I'm talking about.)

Anonymous said...

Bob is NOT gonna like this!

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