Ken Bass: Wire tap only useful for conviction (Was: SAFE Forum--some comments)

[Michael Froomkin]

On Tue, 2 Jul 1996, Ernest Hua wrote:

> 
> > And here I'll comment on Ken Bass's excellent comments (there were many
> > excellent points).
> > 
> > He pointed out that the driving force for crypto policy is probably the
> > _law enforcement_ camp, not the _intelligence agency_ camp.
> 
> Ken pointed out that law enforcement had to have gotten enough
> evidence prior to a wire tap request to show probable cause.
> If this is the case, then the only usefulness of wire taps is
> to improve the likelihood of conviction and not the detection
> of potential terrorist (or child molestation or your favorite
> bad guy) plots.

I thought Ken Bass was wrong on this point (I agreed with everything else
he said): wiretaps help LEOs identify co-conspirators.  They are not
without intelligence value. 

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