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Wiretap Report 2022

Forty-eight jurisdictions (the federal government, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and 44 states) currently have laws that authorize courts to issue orders permitting wire, oral, or electronic surveillance. Table 1 shows that a total of 22 jurisdictions (including state and federal entities) reported using at least one of these types of surveillance as an investigative tool during 2022.

Summary and Analysis of Reports by Judges

The number of federal and state wiretaps reported in 2022 increased 7 percent from 2021. A total of 2,406 wiretaps were reported as authorized in 2022, with 1,274 authorized by federal judges and 1,132 authorized by state judges. Compared with the applications approved during 2021, the number approved by federal judges increased 16 percent in 2022, and the number approved by state judges decreased 1 percent.

In 21 states, a total of 111 separate local jurisdictions (including counties, cities, and judicial districts) reported wiretap applications for 2022. Applications concentrated in six states (California, New York, North Carolina, Nevada, Florida, and Colorado) accounted for 78 percent of all state wiretap applications.

Seventy-six federal jurisdictions submitted reports of wiretap applications for 2022. The Northern District of Texas authorized the most federal wiretaps, approximately 6 percent of the applications approved by federal judges.

Federal judges and state judges reported the authorization of 311 wiretaps and 78 wiretaps, respectively, for which the AO received no corresponding data from prosecuting officials. Wiretap Tables A-1 and B-1 (which are available online at http://www.uscourts.gov/statistics-reports/analysis-reports/wiretap-reports) contain information from judge and prosecutor reports submitted for 2022. The entry “NP” (no prosecutor’s report) appears in these tables whenever a prosecutor’s report was not submitted. Some prosecutors may have delayed filing reports to avoid jeopardizing ongoing investigations. Some of the prosecutors’ reports require additional information to comply with reporting requirements or were received too late to include in this document. Information about these wiretaps should appear in future reports.

Wiretap Orders, Extensions, and Locations

Table 2 presents the number of wiretap orders issued in each jurisdiction that provided reports, the number of extensions granted, the average lengths of the original periods authorized and any extensions, the total number of days in operation, and the locations of the communications intercepted. Federal and state laws limit the period of surveillance under an original order to 30 days. This period, however, can be lengthened by one or more extensions if the authorizing judge determines that additional time is justified.

During 2022, the average reported length of an original authorization was 30 days, the same as in 2021. The average reported length of an extension was also 30 days. In total, 1,358 extensions were reported as requested and authorized in 2022, a decrease of 5 percent from the prior year. The Southern District of Georgia (GA-S) conducted the longest federal wiretap that was terminated in 2022. One original order in GA-S was extended 9 times to complete a 287-day wiretap used in a murder investigation. An order in the Southern District of California (CA-S) was extended 8 times to complete a 270-day wiretap in an narcotics investigation. For state intercepts terminated in 2022, the longest wiretap occurred in New York City, New York, where an original order was extended 8 times to complete a 257-day wiretap used in a narcotics investigation.

The most frequently noted location in reported wiretap applications was “portable device.” This category includes cell phone communications, text messages, and application software (apps). In 2022, a total of 96 percent of all authorized wiretaps (2,300 wiretaps) were reported to have used portable devices.

Prosecutors, under certain conditions, including a showing of probable cause to believe that actions taken by a party being investigated could have the effect of thwarting interception from a specified facility, may use “roving” wiretaps to target specific persons by using electronic devices at multiple locations rather than at a specific telephone or location (see 18 U.S.C. § 2518(11)). In 2022, a total of 29 reported federal and state wiretaps were designated as roving.

Criminal Offenses

Drug offenses were the most prevalent type of criminal offenses investigated using reported wiretaps. Table 3 indicates that 51 percent of all applications for wiretaps (1,225 wiretap applications) in 2022 cited narcotics as the most serious offense under investigation. Applications citing narcotics combined with applications citing other offenses, which include other offenses related to drugs, accounted for 81 percent of all reported wiretap applications in 2022, an increase of 2 percent from 2021. Conspiracy, the second-most frequently cited crime, was specified in 12 percent of applications. Homicide and assault, the third-largest category, was specified as the most serious offense in approximately 5 percent of applications. Many applications for court orders revealed that multiple criminal offenses were under investigation, but Table 3 includes only the most serious criminal offense listed on an application.

Lengths and Numbers of Wiretaps

In 2022, reported installed wiretaps were in operation for an average of 42 days, 2 days shorter than the average in 2021. The federal wiretap with the most intercepts occurred during a fraud investigation in the Eastern District of Virginia (VA-E) and resulted in the interception of 322,445 messages in 28 days. The state wiretap with the most intercepts was a 60-day wiretap for a human/sex trafficking investigation in the Eighteenth Judicial District of Florida, which resulted in the interception of 157,399 messages. See Table A-1 and Table B-1 for data on lengths and numbers of intercepts.

Encryption

The number of state wiretaps reported in which encryption was encountered increased from 176 in 2021 to 192 in 2022. In 179 of these wiretaps, officials were unable to decipher the plain text of the messages. A total of 286 federal wiretaps were reported as being encrypted in 2022, of which 262 could not be decrypted.

Cost of Wiretaps

Table 5 provides a summary of expenses related to wiretaps in 2022. The expenditures noted reflect the cost of installing wiretap devices and monitoring communications for the 1,268 authorizations for which reports included cost data. The average cost of a wiretap in 2022 was $101,837, down 37 percent from the average cost in 2021. In New York, a 190-day state wiretap conducted to investigate an illegal drugs offense that resulted in 14 arrests totaled $3,041,270. For federal wiretaps for which expenses were reported in 2022, the average cost was $106,123, a 62 percent decrease from 2021. In the Western District of Texas, a 30-day federal wiretap in an illegal drugs investigation totaled $3,015,576.

Methods of Surveillance

The three major categories of surveillance are wire, oral, and electronic communications. Table 6 presents the type of surveillance method used for each wiretap installed. The most common method reported was wire surveillance, which accounted for 53 percent (1,054 cases) of the intercepts installed in 2022.  

Arrests and Convictions

Data on individuals arrested and convicted as a result of wiretaps reported as terminated are presented in Table 6. As of December 31, 2022, a total of 5,287 persons had been arrested (down 36 percent from 2021), and 548 persons had been convicted (down 42 percent from 2021). Federal wiretaps were responsible for 48 percent of the arrests and 33 percent of the convictions arising from wiretaps for this period. The Southern District of Georgia reported the most arrests for a federal district in 2022, with wiretaps there resulting in the arrest of 255 individuals. The Middle District of Florida reported the most convictions for a federal district in 2022, with wiretaps there resulting in the conviction of 29 individuals. State wiretaps were responsible for 52 percent of the arrests and 67 percent of the convictions arising from wiretaps for this period.  North Carolina reported the largest numbers of arrests (335) and convictions (192) arising from a state wiretap in 2022.

Summary of Reports for Years Ending December 31, 2012, through December 31, 2022

Table 7 presents data on wiretaps requested and authorized each year from 2012 to 2022. Total authorized intercept applications reported by year decreased 52 percent from 4,979 in 2012 to 2,406 in 2022. Most wiretaps have consistently been used for narcotics investigations, which accounted for 60 percent of intercepts authorized in 2012 (2,967 applications) and 51 percent in 2022 (1,225 applications). Table 9 presents the total number of arrests and convictions resulting from intercepts terminated in calendar years 2012 through 2022.

Supplementary Reports

Under 18 U.S.C. § 2519(2), prosecuting officials must file supplementary reports on additional court or police activity occurring as a result of wiretaps reported in prior years. Because many wiretap orders are related to large-scale criminal investigations that cross county and state boundaries, supplemental reports are necessary to fulfill reporting requirements. Arrests, trials, and convictions resulting from these interceptions often do not occur within the same year in which the intercepts are first reported. Table 8 shows that 2,732 arrests, 1,046 convictions, and additional costs of $17,526,639 arose from and were reported for wiretaps completed in previous years. Forty-three percent of the supplemental reports of additional activity in 2022 involved wiretaps terminated in 2021. Wiretaps concluded in 2021 led to 54 percent of arrests, 26 percent of convictions, and 60 percent of expenditures noted in the supplementary reports.

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¹ Reports of wiretaps submitted to the AO using forms WT-2A or WT-2B that passed all of the AO’s data quality checks were considered complete data submissions and are included in the Wiretap Report. When reports failed the AO’s data quality checks and thus were not complete data submissions, the wiretaps reported were not entered into the AO’s database, as the reports raised data quality issues significant enough to interfere with the AO’s ability to process the report. Reports of wiretaps that are not complete data submissions are not included in the Wiretap Report.