Technology boosts government wiretaps

Fax machines, cell phones, pagers and e-mail targeted

By Richard Willing, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Wiretaps ordered by federal and state authorities on cell phones, pagers, fax machines and e-mail increased by nearly 20% last year, pushing the total number of government wiretaps to a record 1,350.

Traditional wiretaps, such as microphones hidden in walls and "bugs" planted on telephone lines, account for about one-third of all surveillance devices, according to an annual wiretap survey released Tuesday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Many of the taps were done by devices that pluck calls from the air or eavesdrop at cellular phone switching stations.

Nearly three-quarters of the taps were ordered in narcotics investigations, the report said.

The overall increase was fueled by improved surveillance technology and by the continued aggressive use of taps by the Clinton administration Department of Justice.

In 1999, the Justice Department got court permission to carry out 601 wiretaps, up from the 340 authorized in 1992, the year before Clinton took office.

"Clinton supported wiretapping when he was governor of Arkansas, and there's been a noticeable push since he became president," said David Banisar, senior fellow of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group in Washington.

"At the same time, you've got the explosion in cell phones happening," Banisar said. "Everyone is using them, including the people the police want to intercept."

Justice Department spokeswoman Chris Watney said wiretaps were used in fewer than 1% of the 50,000 criminal cases brought by the department last year. "That shows you how selective we are in deciding when wiretaps are necessary and appropriate," she said.

Under a 1968 federal law and separate laws in 42 states, police may obtain permission to tap only by convincing a judge that the device would produce evidence of a crime that could not be obtained any other way. No state or federal request was turned down last year; three have been rejected since 1989.

Among the report's other findings:

Wiretaps sought by state and local authorities declined by 2% last year, the first such decrease since 1995.

The overall increase in wiretaps produced more arrests in 1999 but a lower conviction rate, about 15%.

Five states - New York, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Illinois - accounted for 81% of all state-ordered wiretaps approved last year.

Fourteen of the 42 states that authorize wiretaps ordered no taps.

Federal agents sought authority for seven e-mail taps last year, two more than in 1998.

"Roving" taps, a recently authorized federal technique aimed at individuals rather than phone or pager numbers, increased from 12 in 1998 to 23 last year.

The tendency to rely on wiretaps varied among prosecutors. Taps were used extensively, for example, in federal drug investigations in central California and southern Florida. New York City's Special Narcotics Bureau got permission for 135 taps, more than any state other than New York.

New technology helped simplify the process of tapping cell phones. Increasingly, cell phone tappers listen in at central switching stations as calls are relayed to other cellular or hard-wired phones. Police also use "trigger fish," devices that can pluck cell calls out of the air but must be used near the caller.