Telephone switch capacity -Reply

[Perry E. Metzger]

Lucky Green writes:
> One more time. Despite what you read in the papers, despite what most
> people - even in the legal profession - believe, telephone wiretaps do
> _not_ require a court order. They haven't required a court order in over a
> year.

They never required a conventional court order. This was not new. They
always had a national security escape clause. However, at least they
cannot be used in court unless there was a court order involved, and
the process of getting "legitimate" authorization to, say, bug the
embassy phones, does require that certain forms be followed.

The real problem, IMHO, is that people can avoid the formalities
entirely and simply unlawfully wiretap, and that tracing such attempts
is hard.

Perry