

Sprint sued by Feds for fraudulent cellphone tapping overcharge - Istof
http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/03/03/sprint.alleged.to.have.overcharged.for.illegal.equipment.install/

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Oculus
Let me get this straight:

Step 1: Start by completely ignoring civil liberties and forcing
telecommunication companies to hand over data on their users. Bonus points for
giving an NSL so users aren't aware of their breach of privacy.

Step 2: Allow said companies to bill for providing the data. This makes sure
they keep quite and don't speak up to the things the government is doing
because lets be honest, what sort of businessman is going to complain about
thick margins?

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 & 2 until there is a leak and the world finds out about
everything that's been going on.

Step 4: Wait for the repercussions of step 3 to blow over. Now that everyone
knows what's going on, no use in quieting down the companies by paying them
off so let's sue them for _charging too much_.

How do they have the balls to do this kind of shit? Makes me want to vomit.

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mseebach
Yeah you got it right.

The fact that one end of the government overstepped grants a retrospective (by
several years) right for a company to deliberately over-charge a completely
different end of the government for legitimate services. Certainly, there can
be no topic involving the government and telecommunications where ranting
about NSA isn't on topic. It is really that simple.

~~~
DerpDerpDerp
I mean, the NSA killed contracts from other parts of the government because
Qwest wouldn't play ball, why not pay them through other parts of the
government for deniability?

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jobu
At first I laughed at the government getting scammed by Sprint, but then I
realized I'm paying for the scam (and now lawyer fees) with my taxes. /sigh

No matter who wins this one, everyone (in the US) loses.

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pepsicoke
Terrible spammy website for mobile reading. Better link, in my opinion:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/04/_the_u_s_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/04/_the_u_s_government_is_suing_sprint_in_a_lawsuit_over_21_million_in_fees.html)

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suprgeek
So this is like a nested subroutine illegality (Fraudulent overcharging by
illegal spy company) of a main illegality (Govt. Spying).

Got It!

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droopyEyelids
It's sort of like Saturn eating his sons.

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proovit
What's the "standard fee" for violating the constitution?

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downandout
This is awesomely funny. Get some popcorn, I'll bet the filings will be really
interesting on this one. I guess the Feds don't care that the lawsuit
documents are public, thanks to Edward Snowden. Sprint is going to hire some
Russian mobsters to take him out after this.

