Researcher Chrisopher Soghoian began filing public records requests to federal law enforcement agencies in 2009, seeking records showing how much the agencies have paid in retreival fees to telecommunications companies. He's hoping to find some answers to the question: how often do these agencies ask AT&T and other telecoms for the personal data of consumers? 

The results of his requests have begun to trickle in, with the first response coming from the Secret Service. According to their records, that agency paid out just over $100,000 between 2006-2008, for a total of about 900 transactions. Read more.

To see a PDF version of the documents Mr. Soghoian received, click here.