Fed wiretaps cut due to unpaid bills

Ok, I seem to be on a phone-related theme here. It's getting about as pervasive as Mean Orange People were a few months ago. But... who's watching the watchers? One fed stole $25k?

Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

This is relevant to Uruguay because that giant US Embassy building is rumored to be CIA headquarters, I bet lots of monitoring goes on there... They sure don't have that big of a building just for processing visas.