No payments, no patriotism.

Maybe that should be the new slogan of the anonymous telephone company that, according to this Reuters story, "cut off an FBI international wiretap after the agency failed to pay its bill on time."

The Justice Department's inspector general revealed in a report released last week that shoddy financial practices within the Federal Bureau of Investigation caused at least one international wiretap conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to be cut off because the G-men failed to pay a bill on time.

"Late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence, including an instance where delivery of intercept information required by a ... FISA order was halted due to untimely payment," the audit said.

No one is saying which phone company will be left out of any amnesty deal pulled the plug on the feds' tap. But apparently this wasn't a one-shot occurrence:

The FBI acknowledged a "a few instances" in which late phone bills led to surveillance disruptions. It added, "These interruptions were temporary and in our assessment, none of those cases were significantly affected."

There's nothing more reassuring than a self-assessment, especially coming from a government agency. No doubt the FBI will get to the bottom of this, just as the Justice Department did in the Valerie Plame spy leak case.

In the meantime, we can all sleep well at night, knowing that the War on Terror is in small-claims court good hands.