Government sues Sprint, says carrier overchagred them to bug phones

The Justice Department is suing Sprint, claiming that the carrier overcharged the U.S. government by $21 million to bug phones. Carriers that are ordered by the U.S. government to tap customers' phones are entitled to be reimbursed for the costs of doing so. But the government says that Sprint secretly included the expense of financing equipment upgrades from January 2007 to July 2010.



The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and revolves around conventional wiretaps that require judicial approval. The 1995 law that allows carriers to be reimbursed for their costs ...