[1668] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: USA Today on encryption; FBI's Louis Freeh responds
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jeff Hale)
Mon Sep 29 14:49:09 1997
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:42:40 -0600 (MDT)
From: Jeff Hale <privacy@rt66.com>
To: Nathaniel Daw <daw@cs.cmu.edu>
cc: cryptography@c2.net, privacy@rt66.com
In-Reply-To: <uhlbu1f671t.fsf@gs120.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
On 26 Sep 1997, Nathaniel Daw wrote:
Freeh said...
> > Indeed, state and local law enforcement authorities account for
> > 50% of all the electronic surveillance court orders in the United
> > States.
>
> Does anyone else find this statistic profoundly shocking, and for
> reasons opposite from Herr Freeh's intent? 50% of surveillance court
> orders come from the Feds? Wow! Where would one go to verify this, or
> find out more about government wiretapping patterns?
Nathanial:
The FBI (via the administrative offices of the federal courts, I believe)
must release statistics regarding COURT APPROVED electronic surveillance
orders, both federal and state. This was a provision of the nation's
first wiretap statute, Title III of the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and
Safe Streets Act. Any good library with government documents should have
the stats -- and they may even be on line for the most recent years.
HOWEVER, we know from recent history that the intelligence agencies of the
country have been engaging in WARRANTLESS (w/o court order) wiretapping
since the days of the Black Chamber in WW I. James Bamford's pioneering
work on the NSA should be referenced here: _The Puzzle Palace_. As for
how many illegal wiretaps -- your guess is as good as mine. But it is not
hard to envision a 1984-esque scenario after the CALEA gets fully funded
(allowing FBI/NSA access to hundreds of thousands of
digital telecommunications signals SIMULTANEOUSLY) and GAK becomes
mandatory.
Will they seek court orders in most instances? Maybe. But one of the
historical lessons of the intelligence agency abuses is that their access
to better technologies increases their temptation to take shortcuts
vis-a-vis court orders and similar "red tape" procedures. And the
one-two punch of CALEA and GAK would bolster their access to technology
exponentially.
My contribution to this history: "Wiretapping and National Security:
Nixon, the Mitchell Doctrine, and the White Panthers," 1995, University
Publications of America (UPA). It is a survey of U.S. wiretapping policy
(secret versus public), from the turn of the century to the
Oklahoma City bombing.
Jeff Hale
Santa Fe
privacy@rt66.com
