US authorities intercepted and recorded millions of phone calls last year under a single wiretap order, authorized as part of a narcotics investigation.
The wiretap order authorized an unknown government agency to carry out real-time intercepts of 3.29 million cell phone conversations over a two-month period at some point during 2016, after the order was applied for in late 2015.
The order was signed to help authorities track 26 individuals suspected of involvement with illegal drug and narcotic-related activities in Pennsylvania.
The wiretap cost the authorities $335,000 to conduct and led to a dozen arrests.
But the authorities noted that the surveillance effort led to no incriminating intercepts, and none of the handful of those arrested have been brought to trial or convicted.
The revelation was buried in the US Courts' annual wiretap report, published earlier this week but largely overlooked.
"The federal wiretap with the most intercepts occurred during a narcotics investigation in the Middle District of Pennsylvania and resulted in the interception of 3,292,385 cell phone conversations or messages over 60 days," said the report.
Details of the case remain largely unknown, likely in part because the wiretap order and several motions that have been filed in relation to the case are thought to be under seal.
It's understood to be one of the largest number of calls intercepted by a single wiretap in years, though it's not known the exact number of Americans whose communications were caught up by the order.
Source: ZDnet
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @11:53AM (2 children)
If details of the wiretap get out, it could mean the end of Soylent, when loyal readers hear irrefutable confessions by Soylent staff who admit to using Windows instead of Linux.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @01:17PM (1 child)
> admit to using Windows instead of Linux
You don't use windows. You are its hostage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @01:31PM
That explains why some people claim to like Windows: Stockholm syndrome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @01:20PM (1 child)
How is a citizen supposed to respect authority, when authority takes blatant shortcuts and use a single wiretap order for millions of conversations?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 04 2017, @03:41AM
It's OK, it's just the government using a General Warrant [uslegal.com]. Mind you last time those were used it was one of the main causes of a significant war [history.com].
(Score: 2) by weeds on Monday July 03 2017, @01:23PM (4 children)
I think I have this right...
and
That's 3,292,385/60/26 or about 2,110 calls and/or texts per day per person.
According to this: https://www.textrequest.com/blog/many-texts-people-send-per-day/ [textrequest.com] and this: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/no-time-to-talk-americans-sendingreceiving-five-times-as-many-texts-compared-to-phone-calls-each-day-according-to-new-report-300056023.html [prnewswire.com]
US citizens send about 32 or 33 texts a day and make about 6 or 7 calls.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @01:33PM
Those numbers also make something very clear. The number of individuals needed to be involved to get to the 3.3M is big, much bigger than what is reasonably to be expected from the number of suspects for a specific crime.
This wasn't a targeted wiretap, it was a dragnet operation, a fishing expedition.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday July 03 2017, @01:33PM
Roughly 100 calls per hour, more than one per minute, neglecting time to sleep and eat.
But the point is the investigation focussed on 26 individuals, presumably the tap also monitored contacts and contacts-of-contacts @wiretap --recursive suspects@
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @01:36PM (1 child)
Well, it doesn't say they wiretapped just those 26 individuals, it says they wiretapped in order to track those 26 individuals. Given on the amount of calls and texts, I guess they wiretapped everyone who was even remotely related to the 26 suspects.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 04 2017, @06:53AM
I'd imagine they used an IMSI catcher/stingray [wikipedia.org] (probably multiple devices to try to catch the communications of all 26) to monitor the communications of these folks and anyone nearby was just swept up in the net.
I have no proof, but it seems to fit the facts.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @01:27PM (1 child)
Let's recap 10 years of internet outrage about U.S. Government intelligence-gathering:
1. The American agencies hoover up everything they can get their hands on, any time they want, and share it with anyone they damn well please.
2. All of the "Fives Eyes" countries are complicit in this.
3. Very few citizens of said countries give a shit, at least not enough to spur meaningful reform or oversight.
4. There is, by design, no effective oversight by legislative or judicial authorities. Lone reformers crying in the wilderness are routinely ignored. The outrage of the few is quelled by the apathy of the many.
5. The press, perhaps with the exception of Wikileaks, is so universally reviled and mistrusted that any new revelations are either ignored or disbelieved.
That about covers it. When something changes, that's called news. Otherwise, these stories are just more "Karl Marx is still dead." observations of the on-going obvious.
(Score: 2, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 03 2017, @01:59PM
Obama is out of control. The CIA is out of control. Obama and the CIA wiretapped my phone at Trump Tower. Obama is still wiretapping me. I brought in Mike Pompeo to get the CIA under control. He knows a lot about oil, used to work in the oil industry. As a CEO. We're going to get the CIA back on the job of getting oil for us. Out of the wiretapp business and back into the oil business. Going out and grabbing the oil. Grab, grab, grab for America! I'll tell you what we're gonna do, right – we get greedy, right? Now we're gonna get greedy for the United States. We're gonna grab and grab and grab! We're gonna bring in so much money and so much everything, we're gonna make America great again folks, I'm telling you, we're gonna make America great again. 🇺🇸
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 03 2017, @02:32PM
Pretty much the main reason the Founders included the Fourth Amendment was to prohibit "fishing expeditions" like this, also known as "general warrants." That's why the amendment has all those clauses requiring specifics for the warrants. I mean, I know the Fourth Amendment is basically dead these days, but it's still shocking to see how far it gets bent.
In some ways, this feels more egregious to me than the blanket NSA data collection stuff -- at least there, the agencies were essentially declaring they didn't even NEED a warrant. I don't agree with that logic, but at least it had an attempt at internal logic. Here they apparently had a wiretap order, thus making some gesture toward staying "within the law," and yet it's enough to justify blanket searches for over 3 million communications, thus effectively rendering the prohibitions against general warrants to be functionally meaningless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
so, these stupid fucking pigs spy on american citizens, supposedly free people, to catch people engaged in consensual commerce using illegal/unconstitutional laws as justification? hey dumbass pigs: the drug war is what causes the prices to go up which makes it so profitable for the intelligence agencies(and your brothers in blue), foreign cartels and individuals to sell (non government protected) drugs. are you dumb pigs too scared to chase actual criminals? too busy shooting people's dogs? you are nothing but armed robbers and slave catchers/kidnappers. your state of grace is coming to an end. either correct course or die. you think the few little shootings are something? wait until 5 million people decide they're sick of you ruining lives and hurting/killing people and animals, motherfuckers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @08:22PM
Thanks, now they are going to wiretap all of us. lol
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @08:15PM
When rulers need such extreme security measures, one has to wonder why is their conscience so heavy. What have they done wrong to dread their own peoples so much?
And I'll leave you with this:
In a free society the job of the police is to make the lives of the citizens easier.
In an authoritarian society the job of the citizens is to make the lives of the police easier.
4th of July is tomorrow. Do you really think you live in the land of the 'free'?