IP: Courts OK record number of wiretaps

[Vladimir Z. Nuri]

From: believer at telepath.com
Subject: IP: Courts OK record number of wiretaps
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 10:55:30 -0500
To: believer at 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.
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