In the drug-trafficking operation, the N.S.A. has been helping the Drug Enforcement Administration in collecting the phone records showing patterns of calls between the United States, Latin America and other drug-producing regions. The program dates to the 1990s, according to several government officials, but it appears to have expanded in recent years.

Frankly, any analyst worth their paycheck would tell their boss that, of course, listening to the content would vastly help us find the bad guys because we could sort out all the grandkids' calls to Grandma Martha right off and concentrate on the traffickers.

That, and since they're already in lawbreaking for a penny, it doesn't really break the law any further for them to listen to the content.

frankly, given the facts and circumstances, qwest's refusal to enter into the secret contracts, and their accountant's analysis of projected earnings and profits, i'm not exactly clear on how this helps nacchio's case.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing in April, 1996, Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Democrats were very disappointed, however, because the bill passed without proposed expansions of wiretapping authority. In May 1996, Reps. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and John Conyers (D-MI) introduced H.R. 3409 "to combat domestic terrorism." The bill, titled the "Effective Anti-Terrorism Tools for Law Enforcement Act of 1996," would expand the powers granted to the FBI to engage in multi- point (roving) wiretaps and emergency wiretaps without court orders, and to access an individual's hotel and vehicle and storage facility rental records. It also relaxed the requirements for obtaining pen register and trap and trace orders in foreign intelligence investigations.

A lesser known and far less advertised provision provides for the amendment of the statutory wiretap suppression remedy in 18 U.S.C. 2515. The Section now provides that evidence of intercepted communications may not be admitted in any criminal trial or hearing, or before a grand jury, if disclosure of the information would be in violation of the wiretap chapter. The amendment in H.R. 3409 provides that the suppression remedy in 2515 would not apply unless the violation involved "bad faith by law enforcement."

In July 1996, following the Saudi bombing, the crash of TWA Flight 800 and the Olympic park bombing, President Clinton asked Congress for immediate passage of the new anti-terrorism bill. There was also a renewed push to pass a bill to fund the Digital Telephony Act passed last Congress (the "Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act," PL 103- 414, commonly known as the "National Wiretap Plan").

The Digital Telephony Act was introduced in 1994 at the request of the FBI, to allow the agency to increase its wiretapping capabilities. The Act requires communication companies to make their upgraded digital systems easier for federal agents to tap. Currently, the FBI can wiretap from copper wire phone lines, but not from fiber optic digital phone lines. The plan the Administration has devised would conscript the phone companies to build capability into their phone systems for the FBI to tap one percent of all phone calls made (one out of every one hundred calls). The cost would be a minimum of $500,000,000. Where would the money come from? Get this. According to the latest Administration terrorism proposals, it would come from the unspent funds at the end of the year of all federal agencies with law enforcement or intelligence responsibilities!

....July 31, 1996, President Clinton was still pleading for the bill's passage. The negotiators in Congress were deadlocked over the wiretap provisions!

The conservative House Republicans came to the rescue. They demanded that new privacy safeguards be enacted as the price for any increased wiretapping authority, which would provide individuals with the right to sue individual law enforcement officers for wrongful collection of private information and increase the criminal penalties for such violations, as well as penalties for the wrongful disclosure of wiretap information. Their position was significantly enhanced by the recent acknowledgment by the White House of its improper procurement of hundreds of private and restricted FBI files.

Late in the night of August 1, a House Republican agreement was reached. August 2, 1996, the House passed H.R. 3953, the "Aviation Security and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996." The law is a stripped-down version of its predecessor. The proposals for increased wiretap authority were excluded. The digital telephone funding provision was deleted. Instead, the bill actually enhances privacy safeguards under the Privacy Act and the wiretap laws, by increasing the penalties for illegal use of electronic surveillance information. H.R. 3953 adds terrorist offenses as RICO predicates. It directs the Secretary of State to proceed with the designation of foreign "terrorist organizations," as provided in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act enacted in April, 1996; and thereafter, directs the Secretary of the Treasury to accordingly freeze the assets of, and the Attorney General to initiate the removal of, known alien terrorists and criminals. The bill also establishes a National Commission on Terrorism to make reports to Congress; and directs a study on the feasibility of using taggants in black and smokeless powder.

The fight is far from over. President Clinton and Hill leaders from both parties have promised to revive their push for expanding government wiretapping authority as soon as Congress resumes after Labor Day. August 2, Reps. Hyde (R-IL), Conyers (D-MI), Schumer (D-NY) and McCollum (R-FL), among others, introduced H.R. 3960, the "Anti-Terrorism Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 1996."

Simply put, this bill consists of the wiretap provisions excluded from the just-passed H.R. 3953! It expands multi-point wiretapping, provides increased emergency wiretap authority, and relaxes requirements for obtaining pen register and trap and trace orders in foreign counter surveillance investigations. It reduces the number of the progress reports the government is required to submit to the judge during a wiretap, from the typical number of one every ten days (or at any other interval, in the discretion of the judge overseeing the case at hand), to a single report after fifteen days. And it adds yet more offenses to the list of RICO predicates.