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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday July 02 2019, @11:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the slightly-less-abused-than-the-previous-year dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

With a single wiretap, police collected 9.2 million text messages – TechCrunch

For four months in 2018, authorities in Texas collected more than 9.2 million messages under a single court-authorized wiretap order, newly released figures show.

The wiretap, granted by a federal judge in the Southern District of Texas, was granted as part of a narcotics investigation and became the federal wiretap with the most intercepts in 2018, according to the government’s annual wiretap report.

Little is known about the case, except that 149 individuals involved in the case were targeted by the wiretap.  The wiretap expired last year, allowing the judiciary to disclose the case.

To date, no arrests have been made

Trailing behind it was another narcotics investigation in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania saw police obtain a three-month wiretap that collected 9.1 million text message from 45 individuals. No arrests were made either.

The two cases represent the largest wiretap cases seen in years.

[...] But the overall number of wiretaps authorized and subsequent convictions “fell sharply” in 2018, the U.S. Courts said in its annual transparency report.

A total of 2,937 wiretaps were authorized in 2018, down 22% on the year prior. The report also said that number of wiretaps using encryption went up, rendering the wiretap ineffective.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday July 02 2019, @02:08PM (2 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @02:08PM (#862384) Journal

    As below, multiple phones purchased by the same individual on a single warrant, or perhaps multiple phone numbers believed to be part of the network, maybe. I hope it wasn't a "blank check" warrant, but doesn't have to be that way and still get multiple phones involved in the warrant AFAIK.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 02 2019, @06:07PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @06:07PM (#862471)

    But... over 1600 messages a day? That's not a single person, maybe that's a single person's collection of phones being used by employees, but I didn't see anything about the warrant being issued for 45 drug lords and all their known associates....

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    • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:31PM

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:31PM (#862725) Journal

      It may have been edited into the summary, but it [now] says above, "149 individuals involved in the case were targeted by the wiretap."

      The number is still pretty huge. 9,100,000 [msgs] / 149 [people] / 120 [days] / 12 [hours each day] = 42 messages per hour per individual for those 12 hours.

      On the other hand, we (or at least I) have no idea how dealers use their cell phones and might message one another. Is it the principal way they communicate? Were it I, I would be using the thing all the time and throwing out all kinds of messages as chaff just to try and confuse anyone trying to follow me and I might split my communications between two phones (send messages on one, receive on another). Then again, it wouldn't be I in any event. Apropos of nothing, I remember when I drove cab trying to pick someone up at a seedy motel, going inside and hearing someone chatting away on their cell in another hall about how many 8-balls they could get at what price. Then the person turned the corner and our eyes met - he very quickly scanned me and determined I wasn't a threat. That was ancient history, before text messaging was even possible.

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