Via Pew Research Center.
Via Pew Research Center.

Drug dealers should avoid places like Nevada if they don’t want to have their smartphone conversations recorded by the U.S. government.

Pew Research Center today highlighted a new report from the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts that revealed which states had the most wiretap authorizations from federal and state judges in 2013.

Four states — Nevada, Colorado, California, and New York — made up more than half of those requests, with Nevada clearly leading the way at 38.2 wiretap authorizations per 500,000 people. California had the largest number of wiretaps overall.

Meanwhile in Washington, less than one person in every 500,000 is wiretapped. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Utah also had low rates.

Pew notes that almost 90 percent of the authorized wiretap requests were related to criminal drug-related offenses, while other inquires had to do with smuggling and homicide cases. In addition, 97 percent of the 3,576 requests — which is up 5 percent from last year, and has nearly doubled since 2008 — targeted portable devices like cell phones and pagers.

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