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FBI, telecoms teamed to breach wiretap laws
The FBI and telecom companies collaborated to routinely violate federal wiretapping laws for four years, as agents got access to reporters' and citizens' phone records using fake emergency declarations or simply asking for them.
The Justice Department Inspector General's internal audit, released Wednesday, harshly criticized how the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Communications Analysis Unit–a counterterrorism section founded after 9/11–relied on so-called "exigent" letters to get carriers to turn over phone records immediately. The letters were a hangover from the investigation into the 9/11 attacks in New York and promised telecoms, falsely, that subpoenas would follow shortly.