Sprint fined for law enforcement requests between 2007 and 2010
Sprint has been docked $15.5 million by the federal government for overcharging law enforcement agencies to carry out court-ordered wiretaps, pen registers and trap devices.
The fine followed a joint investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Special Agent in Charge Elise Chawaga, which found that between 2007 and 2010, “Sprint improperly included in its intercept charges the costs of making certain upgrades to its system.”
Telecom operators are allowed to bill law enforcement agencies for “reasonable expenses it incurs in providing facilities or assistance to accomplish a court-ordered wiretap, pen register or trap device” tied to the 1994 Communications Assistance in Law Enforcement Act. However, the Federal Communications Commission in 2006 ruled carriers could not pass on the costs of their CALEA upgrades to law enforcement agencies in their intercept bills. Sprint was found to have passed along these charges in its billing practices.
In settling the dispute, Sprint agreed to pay the $15.5 million fine, but did not have to admit any wrongdoing or liability. The federal government initially filed a lawsuit a year ago against Sprint claiming the carrier overcharged the government $21 million for wiretap expenses.
AT&T’s Cricket division late last year agreed to pay $2.1 million over allegations that it overcharged federal law enforcement agencies to carry out wiretaps and pen registers of its customers. The government claimed that Cricket between 2007 and 2010, before it was acquired by AT&T, overcharged federal law enforcement agencies for performing court-ordered wiretaps and pen registers.
Verizon Communications last year as part of its newly established Transparency Report, claimed it received approximately 72,500 government subpoenas through the first half of 2014 requesting information on its customers. Verizon noted that the information requests were connected to just .1% of its U.S. customers; that 90% of the subpoenas sought information about three or fewer customers; and that the average number of customers whose information was demanded through a single subpoena was fewer than two. Verizon added that none of the requests were for information stored in its overseas data centers.
In late 2005, The New York Times reported that the federal government increased the number of wiretap requests following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The federal government in 2008 provided telecom operators with immunity from prosecution for lawsuits related to privacy invasion claims.
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