FBI’s Unpaid Phone Bills Snip Wiretaps

Telecommunications carriers shut down some covert surveillance lines established by the FBI because the bureau failed to make timely bill payments, a Justice Department review found Thursday.

In five of the bureau’s 56 field offices, an audit by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General found hundreds of delinquent invoices, potentially threatening the integrity of undercover investigations and resulting in an undisclosed amount of lost evidence.

"Late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI," the audit found.

Evidence once was lost when surveillance established by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order, which typically targets suspected spies and terrorists, was "halted due to untimely payment."

As part of the audit, investigators also examined the personnel files of employees in 35 field divisions. It found that "nearly half" of those employees who could access funds that support covert investigations had "indications of personal financial problems, such as late loan payments and bankruptcies."

The inspector general’s review grew out of a 2006 criminal inquiry in which an FBI employee pleaded guilty to stealing about $25,000 intended to support secret wiretaps.