From: Andrew.Spring@ping.be (Andrew Spring)
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 95 10:02:58 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: GAK/weak crypto rationale?
Message-ID: <v01510100ac7a4e673a66@[193.74.217.13]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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>intercepts requested and authorized in the past year.  As I recall, the
>number was quite small - around 12K [?].  Someone had found this out
>through an FOIA request, perhaps, (my recollection of it is poor). It was

I think it's about 1200.

>not a large number, anyway.  I must conclude that the actual number of
>intercepts is much, much larger than they are saying, and that they must
>be getting what they perceive to be good intel from all this snooping.
>

A more cautious conclusion would be would be that the importance (to the
LEA's) of the busts made with crypto is much larger than the numbers
suggest.  You could interpret that a lot of ways:  I suspect that
high-profile career-enhancing cases are highly dependent on wiretaps.