IP: Re: House Passes Roving Wiretaps

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

X-Sender: cdt5 () shell cais com
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 20:21:12 -0500
To: farber () cis upenn edu
From: Alan Davidson <abd () CDT ORG>
Subject: Re: IP: House Passes Roving Wiretaps

Dave --

Thanks for posting that note on roving wiretaps. This evening the Senate
passed the Intelligence Authorization Conference Report (they had almost no
choice) and now the roving wiretaps provisions will almost certainly become
law.

Perhaps even more disturbing than this expansion of federal surveillance
authority is the way that it happened. Even though neither the House nor
Senate version of the authorization bill contained roving wiretaps, and
even though a similar provision was rejected by the full House in open
debate just last Congress, this FBI-wish list item was snuck onto the
must-pass conference report behind closed doors. Those Members of Congress
who even knew it was there were faced with no choice but to approve it or
reject the authorization bill and shut down the entire intelligence
establishment (as attractive as that latter option might sound at times(!),
you can understand why most of Congress did not vote that way...)

As I said in one wire story today: 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.

        -- Alan

Alan Davidson, Staff Counsel                 202.637.9800 (v)
Center for Democracy and Technology          202.637.0968 (f)
1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 1100                  <abd () cdt org>
Washington, DC 20006                         PGP key via finger


> \
> Subject: House Passes Roving Wiretaps
> Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 19:33:17 -0700
> From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>
>
> Fhttp://www.cdt.org/legislation/calea/roving.html
>
> House Passes Roving Wiretaps, Expanding
> Federal Surveillance Powers
>
> October 7, 1998
>
>     In a closed-door manuever, controversial "roving wiretap"
>     provisions have been added to a major Intelligence authorization
>     bill and passed by the House. Current wiretapping law allows
>     tapping of a particular person's phones. The new provisions would
>     dramatically expand current authority by allowing taps on any
>     phone used by, or "proximate" to, the person being tapped -- no
>     matter whose phone it is. Such a broad law invites abuse.
>
>     In the last Congress, the full House of Representatives rejected
>     these provisions after an open and vigorous debate. This week,
>     behind closed doors, a conference committee added the provisions
>     to the important Intelligence Authorization Conference Report,
>     almost certain to pass the Congress. The provisions were not in
>     either the original House or Senate versions of the bill. CDT is
>     particularly concerned that such an expansion of federal
>     authority should take place without a public debate.