90% Of Wiretaps In The US Are Listening Out For Drug Deals

90% Of Wiretaps In The US Are Listening Out For Drug Deals

If you’re worried about being wiretapped you can probably rest easy — unless you’re talking about narcotics. Because that’s what a staggering 90 per cent of taps are listening out for.

A new Administrative Office of US Courts report revealed that wiretaps hits an all-time high in 2013. That’s not terribly surprising. But it also provided a breakdown of why those wiretaps were conducted.

Turns out that, of a total 3576 wiretaps carried out in 2013, 3115 were focussed on narcotics. That dwarfs “other major offences” with just 138 and “homicide and assault” with 132.

90% Of Wiretaps In The US Are Listening Out For Drug Deals

Amazingly, there was only one wiretap associated with kidnapping all year, which either means that kidnapping is very rare or people don’t talk about it on the phone very much. [Administrative Office of US Courts via Motherboard]


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