Directory  News Off The Wall |
| FBI Can't Pay Its Phone Bill |
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 A recently released Justice Department Audit conducted by the departments Inspector General, Glenn Fine, found that the U.S. governments expanded powers under FISA may have been undermined by something totally unrelated to the technical challenges related to wiretapping phone calls and emails. Apparently the FBI didn't pay it's phone bill. About half of 1000 bills related to wiretaps were either not paid on time or not paid at all, resulting in wiretaps being cut.We'll pause for a second to let that sink in, and give you time to catch your breath from laughing your *ss off. The audit detailed many specific instances where wiretaps were lost simply because the FBI was too incompetent to pay for the wiretaps in a timely manner. In one instance cited the unpaid bill to one service provider amounted to $66,000. With recent pushes by telco's to be granted immunity from prosecution when cooperating with the FBI and the NSA, pushes that are actively being fought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, you would think the telco's would want to at least make sure they weren't cooperating with idiots who can't even pay their bill? Though we do think such civil liberty concerns are genuine as is the ongoing activity of whistle-blower Mark Klein , the former AT&T technician who blew the lid off of AT&T's complicity in allowing the NSA to basically tap the entire U.S. communications infrastructure without a warrant, we're left feeling very good about this latest revelation. Why do you say? Because incidents like this make it all too clear that "Big Brother" rides the short bus and frequently forgets to take his meds. The FBI's official press release in response to being outed as morons can be found here. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites            |
