Since at least 1998, the FBI has used hacking techniques and tools — including spyware — to intercept communications, and there has never been a public count of how often spyware specifically was used in wiretaps. That changes soon. The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts (AOUSC) confirmed it will add a dedicated spyware/hacking category to its annual Wiretap Report, beginning with 2028 data published in 2029. Encrypted apps haven’t stopped surveillance. They’ve redirected it toward hacking tools called network investigative techniques (NITs) — and no official count has ever existed.
What’s Actually Changing
The Wiretap Report has tracked authorized intercepts since 1968, but has never distinguished whether agents used conventional methods or hacking tools to access encrypted communications.
The 2024 report logged 2,297 wiretaps — up 9% from 2,101 in 2023. What it never captured: whether those intercepts used NITs to break into real-time communications on Signal, WhatsApp, and similar services. That gap is finally closing. The new category covers:
- Spyware used to intercept live calls and messages only
- It does NOT cover device searches, such as extracting stored photos, files, or location data, which are governed by separate legal processes
First numbers arrive in the 2029 report, covering 2028 cases. For context, Italy already publishes this data — spyware was used against 4,321 targets there in 2023.
“Until now, observers could only guess at the size of the problem,” said Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Why the Numbers Will Matter
Publishing the count transforms years of educated guessing into something authorities can no longer dismiss.
Think of it like a restaurant that refuses to post calorie counts — not because the food is terrible, but because the number might change your order. If government spyware use lands in the hundreds, it supports law enforcement’s “surgical tool” framing. If it reaches tens of thousands, that claim collapses publicly and permanently. Brett Max Kaufman of the ACLU called this an “important and long-overdue step forward for transparency around government hacking.” Worth remembering: a single wiretap order has historically captured millions of messages — and apps that are secretly tracking users add yet another layer to that scale. Scale is everything here.
Still a Half-Step
The new reporting covers real-time intercepts only — government hacking for device searches remains entirely uncounted.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has pushed for this data since at least 2017 and criticized the “unnecessary secrecy around electronic surveillance orders,” welcomed the AOUSC commitment but was direct: it’s not enough. His proposed Government Surveillance Transparency Act would impose broader transparency requirements across surveillance programs. “Americans remain largely in the dark about how the government spies on them,” Wyden said. For users of encrypted apps, the picture gets meaningfully clearer. For everyone else, much of it remains a guess.
The first real number on government spyware use in wiretap contexts won’t arrive until 2029. For civil liberties advocates who’ve spent years arguing about a surveillance program they couldn’t quantify, having an official count — even a partial one — changes the conversation permanently.
