If You Thought your Cell Phone Bill was Expensive-You Should See How Much They Charge to Spy On You

[kpete]

It appears money is no object if the taxpayer is paying for it and they have no way of curbing abuse.


Here are a few of the highlights from the fee data.

Wiretaps cost hundreds of dollars per target every month, generally paid at daily or monthly rates. To wiretap a customer’s phone, T-Mobile charges law enforcement a flat fee of $500 per target. Sprint’s wireless carrier Sprint Nextel requires police pay $400 per “market area” and per “technology” as well as a $10 per day fee, capped at $2,000. AT&T charges a $325 activation fee, plus $5 per day for data and $10 for audio. Verizon charges a $50 administrative fee plus $700 per month, per target.

Data requests for voicemail or text messages cost extra. AT&T demands $150 for access to a target’s voicemail, while Verizon charges $50 for access to text messages. Sprint offers the most detailed breakdown of fees for various kinds of data on a phone, asking $120 for pictures or video, $60 for email, $60 for voice mail and $30 for text messages.

All four telecom firms also offer so-called “tower dumps” that allow police to see the numbers of every user accessing a certain cell tower over a certain time at an hourly rate. AT&T charges $75 per tower per hour, with a minimum of two hours. Verizon charges between $30 and $60 per hour for each cell tower. Sprint demands $150 per cell tower per hour, and Sprint charges $50 per tower, seemingly without an hourly rate.

For location data, the carrier firms offer automated tools that let police track suspects in real time. Sprint charges $30 per month per target to use its L-Site program for location tracking. AT&T’s E911 tool costs $100 to activate and then $25 a day. T-Mobile charges a much pricier $100 per day.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/03/these-are-the-prices-att-verizon-and-sprint-charge-for-cellphone-wiretaps/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/04/1080485/-If-You-Thought-your-Cell-Phone-Bill-was-Expensive-You-Should-See-How-Much-They-Charge-to-Spy-On-You

[CrispyQ]

1. What a fucking racket.

I feel sick. I'm just so sick of it all. The fucking corruption, the fucking hypocrisy, like they're keeping us safe.

Enough DU & politics for a while. This just makes me want to . . . scream.

[LiberalEsto]

2. No wonder local governments are broke

They're squandering our tax dollars to spy on us.

[gopiscrap]

3. If it's even needed

this shit should be done at cost

[Faryn Balyncd]

4. maybe the rate should be raised to $1 trillion/second.

??

[Warren DeMontague]

5. I'm sure they're only using it on really dangerous criminals

Like the chemo sick cancer granny trying to score a dime bag.