Deadbeat FBI can't pay its phone bills, so telcos kill wiretaps

The big telephone companies are only too happy to let the feds snoop on your phone calls and Internet use --- as long as the government pays its bills. But an audit has just revealed that the telcos have been cutting off wiretaps, because the incompetent FBI has been unable to pay its phone bills on time.

Forget the constitution --- when it comes to wiretapping and Internet-tapping, for the telcos, it's only the bottom line that matters. The AP reports that a Justice Department audit has found that phone companies "have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time."

The report found that more than half of 990 bills supposed to pay for surveillance in five FBI field offices weren't paid on time. In just one office, the report found, "unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000." And when the bills weren't paid, the telcos often cut off the surveillance.

In one case, the report found, a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) investigation had to be cut off because the FBI didn't pay its bills on time. The AP notes, "FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies."

It's hard to know which is worse, the venality of the phone companies, or the incompetence of the FBI. When it comes to what appears to be illegal wiretapping and Internet-tapping by the NSA, the telephone companies say they have no choice but to invade people's privacy --- the government says they have to do it. But as this report shows, that's the case only so long as the bills are paid.