Riverside County is the wiretap capitol of the Unites States, thanks to a massive wiretapping operation led by the Drug Enforcement administration that channeled over a thousand electronic intercept orders through one judge in the Inland Empire.
That’s according to an investigation co-published by USA Today and the Palm Desert Sun. Between 2013 and 2014, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Helios Hernandez, the former chief narcotics prosecutor, approved almost a thousand wiretaps requested by federal, state and local law enforcement.
However, officials at the U.S. Department of Justice are refusing to prosecute cases stemming from these wires, claiming that they are of dubious legality.