🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DLB.92Nov4100421@fanny.wash.inmet.com>, dlb@fanny.wash.inmet.com (David Barton) writes:
> 	<1992Nov3.090942.1626@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
>    The average cost of a wiretap in 1991 was $45K.  Most of this goes
>    to labor.  Those of you who think that law enforcers are likely to
>    start tapping everyone with or without a warrant need to do a
>    reality check on cost and government budgets.  Assuming there are
>    about 100 million lines, the total cost to listen in on them all
>    would be $4.5 trillion!
> 
> I am sorry, but this line of argument is absurd.  If the government
> were to attempt wide-scale wiretaps, it would not be so stupid as to
> tap each individual lines.  Most phone communications includes at

The main cost, I believe, is the labor of listening, not the labor of
installing the intercept.  They put 2 people on simultaneously for 3
shifts a day and 7 days a week.  Although my back of the envelope
calculation fails to account for the savings that would come from 
scaling, the real costs for large scale surveillance would nonetheless 
have to be staggering.  It would be like going back to the use of
human beings for the telephone switches!

But perhaps the more important point is that they could not do it 
because it is illegal under Title 18 to tap without an order.  I 
really don't see how some gov't agency could embark on massive 
surveillance without someone finding out and throwing the books at 
them.

Another point about intercepts that seems to be misunderstood has to 
do with minimization.  If the gov't is listening, they have to turn it 
off if the conversation turns to something unrelated to the court 
order.  They can periodically check, but even with a court order they 
are not allowed to listen to everything. 

It's a very tedious, tiring job and law enforcers groan when they find 
out they have to do a tap.  The myth of folks eager to wiretap 
everyone is nothing like the reality.

Dorothy Denning
denning@cs.georgetown.edu