Now that information shows that all of the major telecom companies except for Qwest played along with Bush's warrantless wiretappings, an interesting side note has emerged. Although the details are murky for Verizon and ATnT, documents show that Comcast charged the federal government for each time they broke the law and spied on someone.
From RawStory:
Comcast, which is among the nation's largest telecommunication companies, charges $1,000 to install a FISA wiretap and $750 for each additional month authorities want to keep an eye on suspects, according to the company's Handbook for Law Enforcement. Secrecy News obtained the document and published it Monday.
"I was actually surprised that this was such a routine transaction that it would have a set fee," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.
Aftergood, who runs the Secrecy News blog, told RAW STORY that the Comcast document was the only one he has seen outlining wiretap procedures and costs, so he couldn't compare Comcast's fees with those charged by other telecoms.
So not only did your "trusted" phone carrier break the law and hundreds, if not thousands of people's identity exposed to various government agents, they secured payment at $1000 a pop. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know where that money came from either....straight from our pocketbooks.
To top it all off, Congress is seriously consider legalizing this practice. Seriously, WTF is going on in this "democracy."
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