From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: Courts OK record number of wiretaps Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 10:55:30 -0500 To: believer@telepath.com Source: USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncs2.htm 09/30/98- Updated 12:06 AM ET The Nation's Homepage Courts OK record number of wiretaps WASHINGTON - Federal judges operating in secret courts are authorizing unprecedented numbers of wiretaps and clandestine searches aimed at spies and terrorists operating in the USA, Justice Department records show. During the last three years, an average of 760 wiretaps and searches a year were carried out, a 38% increase from the 550 a year from 1990 to 1994. Federal judges have authorized a yearly average of 463 ordinary wiretaps since 1990 in drug, organized crime and other criminal cases. Part of the growth in surveillance is attributed to an increase in espionage and terrorist activities in the USA. "There's a greater quantity of the folks who are potentially problematic out there," says Jamie Gorelick, who as deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997 helped review wiretap applications. Proponents say the surveillance reflects a stepped-up federal response to increased terrorist activity on American soil. Opponents argue that the process endangers the very liberties it seeks to protect. "This issue is where the rubber hits the road," says William Webster, who headed the FBI in 1978 when the law allowing the secret wiretaps was passed. "It's where we try to balance the concept of our liberty against what has to be done to protect it." The wiretaps, which are applied for by the Justice Department under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and carried out by the FBI and National Security Agency, have received their greatest use yet under President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno. Since 1995, FISA courts also have authorized searches of the homes, cars, computers and other property of suspected spies. In its two decades, FISA courts have approved 11,950 applications and turned down one request. Generally, defense lawyers can challenge the basis for authorizing a wiretap. But supporting information for wiretaps authorized by the FISA court are sealed for national security reasons. "It legitimizes what would appear to be contrary to constitutional protections," says Steven Aftergood, privacy specialist at the Federation of American Scientists. "It's a challenge to the foundation of American liberties." Opponents also say the government is using the wiretaps to replace conventional criminal searches which must meet a higher legal standard. "There's a growing addiction to the use of the secret court as an alternative to more conventional investigative means," says Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The wiretaps are meant to develop intelligence, not to help make criminal cases. But the wiretap information was used to secure guilty pleas from CIA turncoats Aldrich Ames in 1994 and Harold Nicolson in 1997. By Richard Willing, USA TODAY ©COPYRIGHT 1998 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************