WASHINGTON — Court authorized wiretaps issued by federal and state judges in criminal cases jumped 26 percent from 2008 to 2009, and not one request was turned down, the website WIRED reported.
Citing a report released Friday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, WIRED reported that courts authorized 2,376 wiretaps in 2009.
Of those, 96 percent were for mobile phones in drug cases, the report said, according to WIRED. Federal investigators requested 663 of the wiretaps, 24 states acquired 1,713 in all.
The report said each wiretap caught the communications of an average of 113 people, WIRED reported, and only 19 percent of intercepted communications were incriminating. The surveillances included text messages and phone calls.
WIRED reported that about 268,000 people had their text messages and phone calls intercepted in 2009, an all time record.
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