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Wiretaps in U.S. Jump 19% in 2004

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the num­ber of court-authorized phone taps in the U.S. rose by 19% in 2004.

Authorities made 1710 applic­a­tions for taps, and 1710 applic­a­tions were approved (that’s 100%). And that fig­ure does not include terrorism-related taps, which reached a record 1,754 last year. From the article:

“Between 1994 and 2004, the num­ber of wiretap author­iz­a­tions have increased 48 per­cent, accord­ing to the report. In 2004, New York repor­ted 347 wiretaps, California 180, New Jersey 144, and Florida 72 author­iz­a­tions. While judges author­ized more wiretaps, the aver­age length of time in which a wiretap could occur decreased in 2004 from 44 to 43 days.”