November 8, 1995
"Each telecommunications carrier must provide the ability to meet the capability assistance requirements defined in section 103 of the CALEA for a number of simultaneous pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions equal to 0.5% of the engineered capacity of the equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications."
... Excerpt from "Implementation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act," an FBI notice in the Federal Register, October 16, 1995 (Volume 60, Number 199) Pages 53643-53646
Having announced their intent to extend their wiretap capability many hundred fold, the FBI has joined the ranks of government institutions that have discovered that trampling our freedoms is the way to grow and prosper, alongside the FCC, the IRS, the NSA, and the Justice Department. Naturally, one wants the FBI to have all the tools it reasonably requires in order to suppress crime. But government has never stopped at just suppressing the clearly criminal activities of its citizens. The potential for bureaucratic growth is too great and too tempting.
If the FBI gets its way and acquires the ability to wiretap 1 in 100 phones simultaneously in urban areas, rest assured that eventually they will be wiretapping that many and asking for more. Last year, the total number of phone taps was around 800 or around 1100, depending on whose report you read. Their request would permit 200,000 wiretaps in New York City alone. The number of wiretap requests denied by judges last year: none. A sharp increase in wiretapping activity would be inevitable.
Cases in point: the income tax amendment was passed on the promise that the income tax rate would never exceed 3% of income; what happened? Medicare was passed on the grounds that the $13 billion required at its inception would suffice for the foreseeable future; now, "waste, fraud, and abuse" alone account for $33 billion. Growth of government is too easy, too hard to resist, as long as the resources are available: the taxpayers.
Had enough? Consider what happens to the presumption of innocence in IRS proceedings. Want some more? The Justice Department is considering the prosecution of Phil Zimmerman, a private citizen, the author of PGP, to protect its monopoly on cryptographic technology. In combination with the Clipper nonsense and the ridiculously unconstitutional key escrow business, the government is seeking unprecedented powers to regulate data transmissions and peer into the private lives of its citizens.
And just in case you are thinking that the government needs tools to use against the legitimate targets of its enforcement policy, pause to consider and recall that its recent choices of targets have included Randall Weaver and the Branch Davidians.
The FBI's wiretap proposal is appalling. There is only one way to stop this encroachment on our freedoms: to deny the government any further expansions of its authority. The FBI has given us until November 15 to respond with comments on the notice. It is my strong recommendation that we all, to borrow one of the government's vastly overworked phrases, "Just say, 'No.'"
All contents © Copyright 1995, 1996 by Redmon Barbry ¶ 8:10 PM
