FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills

[LaStrega]

This is sorta old news, and I did a search for the headline, so finding nothing thought I'd post ...

FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills

Jan 10, 12:27 PM (ET)

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
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WASHINGTON (AP) - 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. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

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 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.

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. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

The FBI did not have an immediate comment.

Full article: http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080110/D8U35C500.html

[L. Coyote]

1. Are these incompetent NeoCons too busy lobbying for immunity to do their illegal spying properly.

Incompetence was the real danger on Sept. 10, 2001, and it still is.

[LaStrega]

2. Agreed ~ monumental incompetence n/t

[bleever]

3. I wish we could depend upon their incompetence,

but even that's not dependable.

But I do like this story. :)

[formercia]

4. You can't request money for an illegal wiretap

You either pay out of pocket or let it run until the Telco cuts off service.

[kentuck]

5. If you're gonna ask us to break the law...

then you are gonna have to pay us.