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Federal and State Wiretaps Skyrocket in Trump’s First Year

DCReport.com: Law Enforcement Sought 3,800 Taps—Not One Request Rejected—And It’s Not All Drug Dealers, David Cay Johnston: “The number of court-approved federal wiretaps rose 30% during Donald Trump’s first year in office, the latest indicator sign of how his administration is shifting our government from facilitating a healthy society into something closer to a police state. Not a single wiretap request, federal or state, was rejected by any judge, an annual disclosure report from the federal courts released on Wednesday. Nearly all the taps were of mobile phones. The report does not include national security intercepts–where, according to a separate report, judges rejected more requests last year than they had, in total, over the 38 years before that. As for the new wiretapping report, while of 3,813 taps were sought and approved, that almost certainly understates the actual number by close to a thousand. That’s because each year many officials were slow complying with the annual disclosures that Congress requires. Based on reports in the previous decade, which had to be revised because officials were late reporting approved wiretaps, as Congress requires they do annually. When the late reports are counted and disclosed next year it is likely that the increase in wiretaps will be not 30% but well more than 40%…”

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