By Allan B. Colombo
Copyright 1996
Recently, after the Oklahoma Bombing, the demise of flight 800, and
the pipe bomb explosion at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta,
President Clinton and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), under
the guise of an anti-terrorism bill, tried and failed to pass
legislation that would make it legal to institute what is commonly
called "roving wiretaps."
Very little is publicly known about roving wiretap technology. For
example, on August 1, 1996, Marcy Gordon of the Associated Press
wrote: "multi-point wiretaps...allow law enforcement agents to monitor
all phone calls made by a suspect terrorist, rather than those from a
specific telephone, as well as emergency wiretaps, which are valid for
48 hours without a court order" (Anti-Terrorism Plan Has White House,
Lawmakers Agreeing, Canton Repository, Canton, Ohio).
There are two things about Gordon's statement that stand out. First
of all, law enforcement could establish "emergency wiretaps" and
maintain them for a period of up to two days, or 48 hours, without a
court order, as defined in the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
The second thing that stands out about Gordon's statement is the
unclear wording in her description of multi-point, roving wiretaps.
Roving wiretaps will, as Gordon has pointed out, recognize the voice
of a particular terrorist from that of other citizens by the audible
characteristics in his or her voice. These characteristics, when
converted into a digital format, are then referred to as "voice
prints."
The untold story here, however, is that in order for a "multi-
point," roving wiretap to do what Gordon has described in her article,
this technology must be capable of simultaneously monitoring all of
the conversations that take place on the public telephone network at
the same time. Another aspect of the "untold story" is that this same
roving-wiretap technology has the capability of simultaneously
monitoring thousands of telephone conversations according to spoken
WORDS and PHRASES!
These conversations are not monitored in real-time by individuals,
but rather by high-speed, high-tech computers that have the ability to
record and red flag any conversation when a specific voice print or
particular word or phrase is used. Once a conversation is red flagged,
a computerized recording of it is then uploaded to an FBI/government
or law enforcement agent who will then take the time to listen to its
contents. This means that conversations conducted by common, ordinary
U.S. citizens can and will be red flagged and recorded for later
monitoring.
There are some experts who say that this technology is already in
place in select regions of the U.S. It is a fact that it is already
being used to monitor international telephone calls--to assure
national security--and, in this instance and application, I
wholeheartedly agree with it. But, when it comes to the mass
surveillance of domestic telephone calls, I wholeheartedly object.
This is not the first time that this administration and the FBI have
approached Congress on approving their roving wiretap technology for
domestic use. The same intrusive surveillance technology was presented
in 1995, contained within the 1994 Digital Telephony Act. Lucky for
U.S. citizens, however, that the more patriotic and informed members
of Congress recognized the grave intrusiveness of this surveillance
technology, voting it down. A strong telephone lobby, with millions of
engineering and programming dollars at stake, is also at work
educating members of Congress so they do not pass legislation that
would make this wiretap technology law.
So far, the Clinton administration and FBI have not succeeded in
their efforts to legalize roving wiretap technology. However, unless
ordinary citizens get involved by sending word to their Congressional
representatives that they will not stand for this kind of intrusive
surveillance tactics, this overly-intrusive technology is almost sure
to someday become law.
I say this with confidence because this administration and the FBI
have demonstrated their resolve in this area, and I suspect that their
plan is to accomplish their aim by gradually chipping away at those
patriotic members of Congress who have thus far prevented this
wiretapping technology from becoming law. This issue concerns everyone
because once the citizens of this great country give up a
Constitutional right, that right is gone forever, and forever is a
long time.
Editor's Note: This Editorial first appeared in the Letters To The Editor secton of the Canton Repository, a daily newspaper, on November 9, 1996. It was also faxed to other newspapers across the nation
