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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: 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