At 06:43 PM 11/3/95 -0800, Rich Graves wrote:
Of course the FBI doesn't have the staff to listen to all these lines, and they need an individual court order to authorize each individual interception, so this numbers game is a bit of a joke.
This is false: The FBI is legally authorized to intercept phone lines by court order "or other lawful authority".
From the money it would seem that "other lawful authority" intercepts vastly exceed court ordered intercepts.
You will recall the vast outcry in the liberal lapdog press when this vast new power was given to them -- You don't recall it?! Neither do I. This is one of the many vast extensions of government power that we see come down at a steadily increasing rate, to the accompaniment of total silence from a compliant and submissive mass media.
There is no controversy about the number of wiretaps that have been authorized, except as manufactured by the Spotlight folks and other conspiracy loons.
If the only taps are court ordered wiretaps, it would seem we are paying about half a million to a million dollars per wire tap, which is a shade expensive even for government work. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com