Typical weekend, typical issues...

CNN reports today that under the Patriot act, the FBI has had some trouble making sure they wiretapped the right phones, and that has caused a couple of problems:

"The bureau's acknowledgment that it makes mistakes in some wiretaps -- although not specifically roving wiretaps -- came in a recent Justice Department inspector general's report on the FBI's backlog of intercepted but unreviewed foreign-language conversations.

The 38,514 untranslated hours included an undetermined number from what the FBI called "collections of materials from the wrong sources due to technical problems." "

Huh? Thirty-eight thousand, five hundred fourteen HOURS of untranslated tape??

That's over four years of 24/7 translating. Is there room in NCLB for foreign language instruction? Even in the name of the national interest?

The other thing that caught my eye was this:

"Spokesman Ed Cogswell said that language describes instances in which the tap was placed on a telephone number other than the one authorized by a court.

"That's mainly an instance in which the telephone company hooked us up to the wrong number or a clerical error here gives us the wrong number," Cogswell said."

So a teacher pulls that crap? What happens? I can hear the conversation:

"Sorry, sir. I placed the points on a test other than the one authorized by your son..."

Or better yet:

Sorry, ma'am. Someone else hooked me up to a number I didn't want. It's not really your daughter that concerns me after all...."


Here's their whole story...