Telephone switch capacity -Reply

[James A. Donald]

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.

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