[Vision2020] Three Cheers for Ma Bell

Tom Hansen thansen at moscow.com
Fri Jan 11 06:36:55 PST 2008


>From today's (January 11, 2008) Spokesman Review -

-------------------------------------------------

FBI wiretaps were cut off due to unpaid phone bills 

Associated Press 
January 11, 2008

WASHINGTON - 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 Fine.

More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in
five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows.

Assistant FBI Director John Miller said wiretaps were dropped only a few
times because of the backed-up billing, which he said didn't significantly
set back the investigations under way. He said the FBI "will not tolerate
financial mismanagement, or worse," and is working to fix the problems.

"While in a few instances, late-payment of telephone bills resulted in
interruptions of the timely delivery of surveillance results, these
interruptions were temporary and in our assessment, none of those cases were
significantly affected," Miller said in a statement Thursday evening.

The report released Thursday was a highly edited version of Fine's 87-page
audit that the FBI deemed too sensitive to be viewed publicly.

-------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If I wanted to overhear every tedious scrap of brain static rattling around
in your head, I'd read your blog."

- Bill Maher





More information about the Vision2020 mailing list