From: "ama-gi ISPI" <offshore@email.msn.com> Subject: IP: ISPI Clips 5.30: U.S. lawmakers approve major wiretap law change Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 00:08:52 -0700 To: <Undisclosed.Recipients@majordomo.pobox.com> ISPI Clips 5.30: U.S. lawmakers approve major wiretap law change News & Info from the Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) Monday October 12, 1998 ISPI4Privacy@ama-gi.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This From: Reuters News Service, (via Yahoo) October 8, 1998 http://biz.yahoo.com/ U.S. lawmakers approve major wiretap law change (adds Senate approval, FBI comment) http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/981008/b16.html By Aaron Pressman WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Without debate or notice, U.S. lawmakers on Thursday approved a proposal long sought by the FBI that would dramatically expand wiretapping authority -- an idea Congress openly rejected three years ago. The provision, allowing law enforcement agencies more easily to tap any telephone used by or near a target individual instead of getting authorization to tap specific phones, was added to the Intelligence Authorization Conference report during a closed door meeting and filed with the House and Senate on Monday. The conference report was easily adopted by the House on Wednesday, despite an objection to the wiretapping provision from Georgia Republican Bob Barr, and by the Senate on Thursday. Neither the House nor the Senate had included the provision, known as roving wiretap authority, in their versions of the intelligence bill. But lawmakers drafting the conference report, essentially a reconciliation of the two versions, decided to include it. Civil liberties groups were outraged by the expanded wiretapping authority and the process of adding the provision in secret. ``Roving wiretaps are a major expansion of current government surveillance power,'' said Alan Davidson, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. ``To take a controversial provision that affects the fundamental constitutional liberties of the people and pass it behind closed doors shows a shocking disregard for our democratic process.'' FBI officials said they needed to be able to get roving wiretap authority more easily to catch criminals taking advantage of new telecommunications technologies. ``This provision is just a refinement of the existing wiretap statute,'' said Barry Smith, supervisory special agent in the FBI's congressional affairs office. ``It's just a matter of ensuring we have the means to effectively pursue these violent criminals and terrorists.'' Under current rules, law enforcement agencies seeking roving wiretap authority from a judge must prove that an individual is switching telephones specifically for the purpose of evading a surveillance. The standard has been difficult to meet and kept the number of roving wiretaps approved to a minimum, a telephone industry official said. Without roving authority, police must get permission from a judge for each telephone line to be tapped. Under the change approved this week, the police would need show only that an individual's ``actions could have the effect of thwarting interception from a specific facility.'' The change removed the need to consider the target's motive in using different telephones. 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