While everywhere there is much talk about the new law on wiretapping, should shed light on a fundamental aspect: the size of the phenomenon. How many interceptions are made each year in Italy?
The argument I am hearing it a lot. Each gives his numbers, even it was the lottery. A hand to extricate the orgy of figures gives us the timely Luca Ricolfi in a editorial appeared a few weeks ago on Panorama.
Ricolfi Explain that almost all estimates are based on the same starting point: the time series of decrees for the authorization of wiretapping. Everyone, however, the law as it wants. It is, thus, from 30 million Italians involved in a relationship reported by Eurispes in 2005 to just 20,000 referred to by the deputy prosecutor of Palermo Antonio Ingroia.
is the usual Italian story of two tribes, ready to do anything to give him another. The approaches used are, according Ricolfi both wrong:
Eurispes The approach is to use it to calculate the total number of people heard in a decade (1995-2004), including those that fall in the net simply because talking on the phone with a suspect. To obtain this number Eurispes uses two completely unrealistic assumptions: the first is that any suspected person, in the period in which it is intercepted, talk to at least 100 different subjects, and the second is that non vi sia alcuna sovrapposizione fra l’insieme dei soggetti ascoltati in un anno e quelli degli anni precedenti e successivi. Così facendo si arriva a 29 milioni di ascoltati nel periodo analizzato dall’Eurispes (1995-2004) e a qualcosa come 54 milioni nel periodo 1999-2008.
L’approccio di Ingroia è opposto. Per lui le statistiche sui decreti di intercettazione (quasi 100 mila nel 2008) includerebbero anche le proroghe e quindi gli intercettati sarebbero solo 20 mila. Tuttavia, l’assunto di Ingroia è errato: i decreti di intercettazione pubblicati dal ministero della Giustizia non includono le proroghe, e dunque le persone intercettate ogni anno non sono 20 mila ma quasi 100 mila.
The number of intercepted as suspects, therefore, amounted in 2009 to 87,413. down from 90,632 in 2008, but up sharply compared to a decade ago. The boom in the number of intercepted, ironically, coincides with the period of the center-right government. The figure is growing, in fact, from 23,018 to 30,295 between 1996 and 2001, reaching 72,383 in 2006.
