phone tapping?

[littlestar3842]

How often is phone tapping used, is that just for investigators? I often though about that and there has been a lot of talk about that over the past ten years. How is it usually done? Probably in a real discrete way. I am curious? Thanks for your time ladies and gents.

[acreature]

Wait for a Fed... we don't do it locally.

[Switchback]

Phone tapping (or wire tapping, or wires) is not all that uncommon at the federal level. I have never done one, but I have worked on several. They are common for narcotics and conspiracy cases around here. The threshold to get a wire is very high. The courts (at least the federal ones) are very leary(sp?) of stepping on people's rights to privacy. If you get all your ducks in a row, howeve, you can get one.

You will never know you have a wire on you.

I have more experience in pen registers, which gives you all the info BUT the actual conversation. They are easy to get, cost a lot less and give you a ton of info. Hell, I'm getting 2 tomorrow (assuming I get the court orders written up today ).

[littlestar3842]

Thanks for your reply!

[JD45]

We do pretext phone calls that are taped with certain types of crimes like rape. If she's willing we'll have her call up the suspect and say something like 'why did you do that to me'. Once he makes an admission, we're as good as gold.

[littlestar3842]

That's interesting JD45

[Sleuth]

Wires are a huge amount of work, manpower intensive, with vast quantities of paperwork. And, don't bother with all the neat "know if your phone is tapped" junk sold. If I got a Federal warrant to tap your phone, it is undetectable.

[littlestar3842]

I see

[littlestar3842]

I was always interested in stuff like this, the question has been on my mind for sometime. Thanks for your replies.

[retdetsgt]

I've done it twice, both on homicides and it's a *****, to say the least.

It's expensive because once it starts, you have to monitor 24-7 until you shut it down. Everything monitored has to be taped. Calls have to be minimized, that is once it's determined that the call has nothing to do with the case, you have to quit listening. Records up the kazoo have to be kept and at the end sent to the U.S. Attorney to make sure you did it right, even if it's not a federal case.

I was lucky in that one of our detectives was a technogeek who set it up for me. He knew phone company equipment and computers so he did all that for me. There's a computer program that sorts the data for you that's invaluable.

My dept does one maybe every 6 or 7 years. And all of those have been on homicides.

The only good news is a lot of people made a lot of overtime monitoring!

[Legoate]

We do pretext phone calls that are taped with certain types of crimes like rape. If she's willing we'll have her call up the suspect and say something like 'why did you do that to me'. Once he makes an admission, we're as good as gold.

I'd agree with JD45, I think pretext phone calls are way more common than actual wiretapping.We use pretext calls for all sorts of crimes. Much easier to do, and doesn't require the court orders.

[Blackjack78]

I do approximately 25+ Court Ordered Wires or T3's a year.

[littlestar3842]

Wow, that's great! Thanks for your replies.

[Group9]

I've done a few. I just left an enforcement group that was dedicated to Title III's of major traffickers.

The issuance of Title III's, wiretapping of telephones, is governed by federal law. Even state laws that authorize it for state and local officers have to track and comply with federal law.

Procedurally, getting a federal wiretap is not overly difficult. Our biggest hurdle is always getting past the reviewers at the Department of Justice who apply a much stricter standard than just the requirements of the law.

Mainly, this is due to the tremendous costs associated with wiretapping. While the actual cost of tapping the phone is relatively cheap, only a couple of thousand dollars, mostly the expenses paid to the service provideer (phone company), the manpower costs can be huge.

Usually, you man two 8 hour shifts for seven days a week (and sometimes three shifts if more than one person is using the phone and it is active 24 hours a day). The typical wiretap order is granted in 30 day increments with ten day reports to the issuing judge. You also have to have surveillance agents who are following the subject of the wiretap around, documenting what he is doing. This is so when he gets a call telling him to go pick up "two wheel rims", you can testify, that whatever he picked up, it wasn't two wheel rims because he carried it out in a grocery sack, etc.

If the subjects of the wiretap are speaking a foreign language, then you have to hire translators if you cannot get enough bi-lingual LEO's to cover the shifts. And you also have to hire people to transcribe the conversations for court.

All in all, a wiretap can costs $50,000 to $100,000 dollars a month in salaries and other expenses. You are not going to spend that kind of money to catch a guy dealing joints of marijuana.

And, as Sleuth said, you are not going to know it has happened until it is all over and you get indicted, or are notified that you have been intercepted on a wire and are subject to be indicited.

[littlestar3842]

Thanks, that's really interesting.