Wiretap Reports

 



The United States Courts web-site reports information provided by federal and state officials on applications for orders for interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications. Data address offenses under investigation, types and locations of interception devices, and costs and duration of authorized intercepts. Covers 12-month period ending December 31. This report does not include data on interceptions regulated by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

 



 

Encryption (2016)

 

The number of state wiretaps reported in which encryption was encountered increased from 7 in 2015 to 57 in 2016. In 48 of these wiretaps, officials were unable to decipher the plain text of the messages. A total of 68 federal wiretaps were reported as being encrypted in 2016, of which 53 could not be decrypted. Encryption was also reported for 20 federal and 19 state wiretaps that were conducted during a previous year, but reported to the AO for the first time in 2016. Officials were not able to decipher the plain text of the communications in any of the state intercepts or in 13 of the federal of intercepts.

It would seem that while encryption is effective in protecting your communications against wiretapping, most subjects of wiretapping are not using encryption.

"The evil incident to invasion of the privacy of the telephone is far greater than that involved in tampering with the mails. Whenever a telephone line is tapped, the privacy of the persons at both ends of the line is invaded, and all conversations between them upon any subject, and although proper, confidential, and privileged, may be overheard. Moreover, the tapping of one man's telephone line involves the tapping of the telephone of every other person whom he may call, or who may call him. As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wire tapping."
-Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)