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Average Cost Per 'Official' Wiretap In The US: $50,452
Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
Last week, in a very, very quiet release, the US Federal Court system published its annual Wiretap report to Congress.
This is something that is required by law; the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) must annually report the number of federal and state applications for court orders to “intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications.”
Note – this report only covers wiretapping orders by US courts; it does not include anything related to the NSA’s electronic surveillance, FBI ‘administrative subpoenas’ to Google / Facebook, the US Postal Service snooping people’s physical mail, or any of this top secret FISA nonsense.
In other words, these numbers add yet another dimension to how vast the US spy state has become.
The report gives a lot of eye-popping details about these official, court-ordered wiretaps, including:
- Riverside County, California is the most spied-on county in the United States
- Followed by Clark County, Nevada
- 3,395 wiretaps were ordered, averaging 29.03 days each
- The average cost of a wiretap order last year was $50,452
- The highest cost was $872,841 for a Federal wiretap in the Eastern district of Washington
- 87.39% of these wiretap orders were connected to drug-related charges
- Only 18.19% of these wiretaps actually led to a conviction
This last point is worth repeating. Because for all the people who think, “Good, let the government wiretap those evil criminals,” it shows that such tactics are totally ineffective.
In its efforts to continue fighting the War on Plants, the US Federal government, along with dozens of state governments, spent a whopping $50,000 on each wiretap.
Yet the evidence that comes from such wiretaps is clearly underwhelming. There is no ‘smoking gun’ as only about one in five of the wiretap subjects is convicted.
And, as obtuse as it may sound, this is how government prosecutors measure their own success– by how many bodies they incarcerate, regardless of how ridiculous the offense may be.
So using the numbers from this report, for every conviction they get from wiretapping, the government wastes $277,361.19 on other wiretaps that produce absolutely nothing (based on their own metrics for success).
This is a mind-numbing waste of taxpayer / borrowed Chinese money on surveillance that clearly delivers ineffective intelligence.
And for the thousands of people who have been surveilled, it represents yet another egregious violation of what few civil liberties remain in the Land of the Free.
But remember– there are plenty of steps you can take to enhance your freedom, especially when it comes to your digital privacy.
My team and I recently put together a detailed Black Paper on how to defend yourself against these threats– wiretapping, NSA surveillance, and more. And we’ve made it available absolutely free.
It’s a guide to ‘Giving the NSA the Finger… Without Them Ever Noticing.’
You can download it for free here– and, please, do share it with your friends and loved ones.
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only 18% led to conviction - That seems pretty good to me....
...yes. Of course the other 89% were politically connnected and the files were "lost".
Long wire tapping...
"for every conviction they get from wiretapping, the government wastes $277,361.19 on other wiretaps that produce absolutely nothing"
But can you imagine how much more it would cost if we ever had another 9/11 event? Thank God for the government keeping us safe in exchange for a little bit of freedom. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear..... (Goebels)
/SARC!!!!
Simon's just not seeing the whole picture from the correct economic standpoint to understand the true value of programs like these and the "War on Plants".
How many jobs does this create? How many lawyers, police officers, judges, etc. Not to mention how many jobs in the private sector are created at the prisons and telephone companies. And what's the Keynesian multiplier on $277k per w/t?
Yea, sure, violating you in every way possible is expensive, but think about the jobs!
Agreed. Click on the report and tell me you won't "end up on a list" with a straight face. I'm on lists all over the place.
They start that "list" thing young don't they. Ever since Kindergarten (Infants 1) pupils are put on lists. They even give prizes and awards to the star pupils to take the list to the principal (head master). F'n brainwashing!
"this is how government prosecutors measure their own success– by how many bodies they incarcerate, regardless of how ridiculous the offense may be."
Now where have I heard this before?
Oh yea... The way they measured "success" in the Vietnam war, but it was dead bodies instead....
Oh the fraturnity of police found those files and inwested it on today's, bigger law ponzi scheme.
White collar SNAP
Simon is making it sexy! His Team puts out a Black Paper that the governments don't want you to see.
Now why am I picturing the Dos Equis guy?
pods
.
It's even better than that. Simon is the guy who hunts for Peyote buttons, taking only those from cacti which present themselves in his path (as described in Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge), and, in his well stocked home laboratory, extracts pure mescaline from them, which he then sells to both the Dos Equis guy and Marc Faber (after making them each leave three or four messages before returning their calls).
I logged in just to upvote this
I'll never understand this new math.
18% of the time, government works every time.
Must. Feed. Prison. Industrial. Complex.........
It's made with bits of real panther
Sounds about right for a government program....
This gives you an idea: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/foia/docs/elec-sur-manual.pdf
Yet, the U.S. is still #1 in per capita incarcerations. It's expensive on the investigation and data-collection end, and on the conviction end.
200 more per 100,000 than Rwanda and Cuba .... probably due to poor metadata gathering.
The death of the dollar could be quite liberating (assuming they release the nonviolent prisoners instead of just killing them off with dysentery). To that end, when calling sheeple whose only crime is supporting the government, I try to spice up the conversation with keywords. Spending borrowed clownbux trying to figure out what kind of weird trip I'm on might bring the system one millisecond closer to collapse.
HDLFIEPA THC CMLAKHAWH EIPQ MBAW H QOIY CTHULHU FTAGN
OT: psst! your pyramid says MMXII, we have now MMXIII
That's clever.
30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. -factcheck.org
Just thought you'd like to know.
And why should one expect otherwise, when probably roughly 30% of the overall US population consists of illegal aliens (and their rabbit-breeding offspring) as well?
11 million undocumented Democrats is 30% of the US population of 313 million? Someone is lying about the numbers.
Take ALL the illegal aliens who are not just currently within the USA, but who have cumulatively come into the USA over the last 60 or 70 years, AND all their offspring who were born inside the borders of the USA and are therefore automatically US citizens (but never should have been), AND all the offspring of those, and you will likely come very close to 90 million.
As the old saying goes, nits make lice.
It's the beautiful mosaic of multiculturalism. Is it any wonder the country is splintered into different groups? It was done purposely. I thank LBJ, democrat, not that it matters, for putting us on this path in 1965.
That seemed high, so I checked the "factcheck.org" source, and it disagrees with the statement you are attributing to it. In fact, it states that only 1.6% of State AND Federal prisoners were illegal immigrants and approximately half were in there for no other reason than their status as illegal immigrants. This is substantially lower and these offenders are likely there for a short period of time as they are transitioned to their home countries.
"A Department of Justice report from 2003 found that only 1.6 percent of the state and federal prison populations was under Immigration and Customs Enforcement jurisdiction, and thus known to be illegal immigrants. Half of these prisoners were detained only because they were here illegally, not for other crimes.
The Bureau of Prisons does track prisoners by offense when information is available. By that metric, 10.7 percent of prisoners in Federal (not state) jails were incarcerated for immigration offenses in 2009. In 2006, when Romans gave her report, the figure was 10.2 percent."
-http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal-immigrants/
According to that report, in 2012, 2,967 out of 3,395 (87%) "authorized intercepts" were for narcotics investigations. The "War on (some) Drugs" continues...
Rehabilitation is the goal, I guess
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di7vbNJwzZQ
that means that 18% of criminals are actually dumb enough to use fascist phone lines to conduct illegal business. sum dum fuks. don't answer the phone.
What makes you think that immediate convictions is the objective? I suspect dosier building and network discovery are the principal objectives.
FISHING TRIPS. They have nothing, so try to gather something.
It is so tempting to post anecdotes.
Of course, the NSA is just watching the watchers.
Got to have oversight don't you know.
But since the NSA outsource their computers to a private firm, they don't even own the computers they use for spying.
So the NSA is no doubt leaking info like a sieve.
Who is watching those who are watching the watchers?
-----------------
Glass-Steagall
Get enough links connected in that chain of watchers and pretty soon unemployment will be below 6% again...
Life imitates art.
From the "Simpsons" movie. I can't believe they aired that scene on Saturday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtgQ-SegT5Y
Where does one draw the line between "oversight" and "overlooking"?
We all want that possible dirty bomb or other mass destruction device to be discovered before it can do harm.
As of now, add up all the lives spent on the "war" compared to victims.
Compare both to the human and economic loss of smoking, overeating, inactive lifestyles, drunk driving, or auto accidents.
It seems some of our danger comes from having not just left things alone that we had no business bothering with in the first place.
It seems some of our actions are just because we can and we can afford (or used to be able to afford) to.
Egypt is a fresh example.
Catching bad guys in spider holes may be preventive action, and in cases like that it is hard to know for sure.
The waste at the federal level is so huge it's hard not to believe our solutions may be an over-reaction, but then again, I buckled my kids into a car seat thousands of times even though I have a perfect driving record. If there ever was a serious accident, I'd wish I had added helmets to the process.
We the people are not your, or the government's, fucking kids.
.
I think oversight is officially defined as less than one box of tissues per eight hour shift.
Probably could pay for it if they used it to get some good trading picks...
Riverside, muthafu**er!
Located directly at the end of the smog producing tailpipe of LA ..... a county where gubmint officials and developers are one and the same.
You gotta eliminate your competition....
Land of the free...that's a good one. Where is this mythical place? Chile?
"The average cost of a wiretap order last year was $50,452"
It enhances my self-esteem to know that someone is paying that much money to "get to know me a bit more". Even better than ShingleMingle.com
Cost is no issue when your job is to keep increasing the debt so as to not let the entire ponzi implode.
I think we need more $500 hammers to smash $300 toilet seats.
'murica, fuck yeah!
pods
"We will save money through procurement"
Caspar "Cap" Weinberger (aka "Cap the Ladle" for advocating large increases in defense spending).
Sect. of Defense (1981-1987)
Pardoned by GHW Bush who said in a proclamation granting executive clemency: "I am pardoning him not just out of compassion or to spare a 75-year-old patriot the torment of lengthy and costly legal proceedings, but to make it possible for him to receive the honor he deserves for his extraordinary service to our country."
http://www.fas.org/news/iran/1992/921224-260039.htm
"borrowed Chinese money on surveillance"...??????
~~~
The only thing I hate more than being spied on & taxed up the ass on are idiots that don't know where the funding is coming from & WHO gets the benefits...
Lighten up Francis! Everyone knows that the Chinese are loaning us all this money.
It isn't like they are creating all this debt out of thin air?
errr, nvm.
pods
It should be very clear right now what the 'Chinese' are doing with their money...
~~~
That they're 'printing' it as fast as we are is another story entirely...
Osama bin Laden spoke often of a strategy of "economic warfare" against the United States, a low-level war aimed at bankrupting the world's economic superpower.
A decade after the 9/11 attacks, it's hard to argue that bin Laden's strategy was ineffective.
The attacks themselves, according to the September 11 commission, cost Al Qaeda between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute.
They have cost America, by our estimate, more than $5 trillion - a "return on investment" of 10,000,000 to one.
Yeah, that report was the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
... and just like the Soviets were bankrupted fighting the Taliban/AQ in Afghanistan he felt it possible to do the same to the US. Unfortunately, it looks like we have fallen right into the trap either wittingly or unwittingly. By any measure when it comes to an American's loss of freedom we have lost the war on terror. Which leads to many thinking we did this all wittingly. I'll leave it to the historians to figure whether this was all orchestrated.
You mean that same Bin Laden who immediately came out after the days of 9/11 and completely denied anything to do with it? ...or perhaps the Bin Laden that was on deaths door step over ten years ago, but magically kept going with cave man/goat herder technology... sure...
I guess the truth hurts to the negative shill rater...
Sheesh. Only a brainwashed nitwit could believe anything in that "9/11 commission report."
Isn't it obvious that EVERYTHING the government puts out is war-mongering propaganda to fool the zombie proles so they'll Sig Heil just like the Germans ... and to scare most thinking persons into silence?
bin Laden was a CIA asset who died of natural causes in late 2001 and was thin as a rail. the pudgy guy in the later videos was an actor working for the CIA.
Riverside Co=Military Complex
No shit... That's like Ft. Meade, Maryland with DRAX Industries plopped right down in the middle of it...
Riverside County extends out to the Arizona border and includes Palm Springs/Palm Desert and La Quinta. Lots of second homes. The saying used to be 'everyone goes to Palm Springs' and it included mob guys and political leaders. Now it's the whole valley.
http://www.americanregistry.com/recognition/12-defense--aerospace-contractors---riverside-county/98558
That "report" was the biggest load of bullshit I have ever read with regards to internet/user "security"...
50k is not the all-in cost. And if any further action is taken, the cost increases. And most of these crimes produce no tangible harm to anyone but government rentiers.
The metric of success is: Are we over-budget? Are our pensions okay? Are we golfing this Friday? Did we get enough overtime pay? Is anyone suspicious or threatening to cut our funding? I'm going on my 5th vacation this year, can you reschedule that meeting?
PS: This type of oldschool wiretap has nothing to do with the mass spying programs, it's an anachronism, plain and simple.
You're 30x more likely to be killed by your bathtub than by a terrorist, "National Bathmat Awareness Day" would have saved vastly more lives than the last 12 years spent demolishing privacy and the 4th Amendment.
Actually let's call it National Slipperiness And Bathmat Awareness Day.
They hate us for our frictions!
I mourn the fact you can no longer buy high capacity friction mats...freedom is slipping away!
But the years of life expectacy lost might be only 10X or 20X. Still, it pisses me off that our pediatrician feels a need to ask my wife if we have guns in the house (following the Obamacare checklist) but never asks if we have a swimming pool. GD stupid, anti-liberty statists.
Sometimes, the best camouflage is standing in the middle of the crowd, while they peer out...
I wonder what the average cost of a waterboarding at Gitmo is.
I call bullshit.
Perhaps this is just a ledger cover, similar to the $10K toilet seats and $5K hammers from days gone by in order to cover expenditures on other black programs.
So... like... How many farts can you manage to bubble up let loose between chapters of your Clive Cussler novels?...
$277,361.19 on other wiretaps
And none of you geniuses noticed that the arithmetic here is wrong.
Close enough for government work.
More wiretapping would be positive for GDP. BULLISH!
Bennie got it covered. Nothing control-P can't monetize.
These stats can't be any worse than the stats for the "war on drugs". Is the supply and the cost the same as in the 80's? Can you buy whatever you want wherever you want? Has crime been curtailed? How much do we spend per prison inmate for a non-violent drug offenses? Everyone knows its a lost cause but it makes people feel good about themselves that they're fighting the "war on drugs" as if it gives meaning to their lives. More govt. wasting taxpayer money. It will never end, there's too much money in it for the hightech surveillence lobbyists.
OK, where's the chart plotting the average wiretap cost vs the average gold ounce, adjusted for inflation?
I think they have a few radical mosques in Riverside as well as the Mexican mafia, I would have figured LA County with Assessor Noguez (on bail) on the take to hundreds perhaps thousands of people would have taken the cake.
LA County leads the nation in public corruptioin prosecution, here's a few.
Cudahy
Bell
Vernon
Huntington Park
Maywood
LA County
LA must have political protection from wiretaps.
MOAR.......impeachment
This is good news of sorts. Big Brother is incompetent. No surprise there. Feinstein and Pelosi are hateful thugs. No surprise there. O'bomba, Democraps and Repugnants who trash the Constiitution will end when the money ends...sooner than they imagine. Good.
CONgress is a warmonering hateful self-serving useless tool of the Internationale, and it will end in a whimper, not a bang. Good.
that's a lot $ wasted tracking down mexican illegals and pot dealerz