Electronic surveillance

“ With respect to electronic surveillance authorized by this subsection, the Attorney General may direct a specified communication common carrier to— (A) furnish all information, facilities, or technical assistance necessary to accomplish the electronic surveillance in such a manner as will protect its secrecy and produce a minimum of interference with the services that such carrier is providing its customers ”

“ For there is a qualitative difference between electronic surveillance, whether the agents conceal the devices on their persons or in walls or under beds, and conventional police stratagems such as eavesdropping and disguise. The latter do not so seriously intrude upon the right of privacy. The risk of being overheard by an eavesdropper or betrayed by an informer or deceived as to the identity of one with whom one deals is probably inherent in the conditions of human society. It is the kind of risk we necessarily assume whenever we speak. ”

“ The CIA may not engage in any electronic surveillance within the United States. No agency within the Intelligence Community shall engage in any electronic surveillance directed against a United States person abroad or designed to intercept a communication sent from, or intended for receipt within, the United States except as permitted by the procedures established pursuant to section 2 - 201. ”

“ Since that time, electronic surveillance has been governed primarily, not by decisions of this Court, but by the statute, which authorizes but imposes detailed restrictions on electronic surveillance. See ibid.
Modern cell phones are of great value for both lawful and unlawful purposes. They can be used in committing many serious crimes, and they present new and difficult law enforcement problems. ”

“ Any person against whom evidence obtained or derived from an electronic surveillance to which he is an aggrieved person is to be, or has been, introduced or otherwise used or disclosed in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding in or before any court, department, officer, agency, regulatory body, or other authority of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof, may move to suppress the evidence obtained or derived from such electronic surveillance on the grounds that— (1) the information was unlawfully acquired ”

“ We were dealing with the asbestos legislation on the floor at the time, and I needed to go over to the floor.
I'm interested in the telephone companies that assist the government engaging in electronic surveillance face potential criminal and civil penalties if they disclose consumer information unlawfully.
So they are protected from such liability if they receive a written certification from the attorney general or his designee saying that, and I quote, "No warrant or court order is required by law, that all statutory requirements have been met and that the specific assistance is required." ”

“ If the legitimate need of Government to safeguard domestic security requires the use of electronic surveillance, the question is whether the needs of citizens for privacy and free expression may not be better protected by requiring a warrant before such surveillance is undertaken. We must also ask whether a warrant requirement would unduly frustrate the efforts of Government to protect itself from acts of subversion and overthrow directed against it. ”

“ A more difficult problem is presented where the Government admits to conducting unlawful electronic surveillance of a person connected with the individual requesting disclosure, with no surveillance conducted of the individual who has requested the disclosure. In such a case, the concern remains that the Government may have obtained evidence concerning the individual requesting disclosure through unlawful electronic surveillance. ”

“ Let me start first with the signing statement of President Carter, when he signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, on October 25th.
He said in part, quote, "the bill requires, for the first time, a prior judicial warrant for all electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purposes in the United States in which communications of U.S. persons might be intercepted. ”

“ The great majority of law enforcement officials believe that the evidence necessary to bring criminal sanctions to bear consistently on the higher echelons of organized crime will not be obtained without the aid of electronic surveillance techniques. ”

“ It is difficult to imagine how any of those exceptions could ever apply to the sort of search and seizure involved in this case. Even electronic surveillance substantially contemporaneous with an individual's arrest could hardly be deemed an 'incident' of that arrest. [20] Nor could the use of electronic surveillance without prior autorization be justified on grounds of 'hot pursuit.' [21] And, of course, the very nature of electronic surveillance precludes its use pursuant to the suspect's consent. ”

“ Senator, whatever the limits of the president's authority given under the authorization of the use of military force and his inherent authority as commander in chief in a time of war, it clearly includes the electronic surveillance of the enemy. ”

“ Professor Alan Westin has written on the likely course of future conflict between the value of privacy and the "new technology" of law enforcement. Much of the book details techniques of physical and electronic surveillance and such possible threats to personal privacy as psychological and personality testing and electronic information storage and retrieval. Not all of the contemporary threats to privacy emanate directly from the pressures of crime control. ”

“ The current confusion over the legality of electronic surveillance compounds the assessment problem since many agents feel their conduct may be held unlawful and are unwilling to report their activities. ”

“ I'd like to make clear that, for me, at least, this hearing isn't about whether our nation should aggressively combat terrorism; I think we all agree on that. And it's not about whether we should use sophisticated electronic surveillance to learn about terrorist plans and intentions and capabilities; we all agree on that. And it's not about whether we should use those techniques inside the United States to guard against attacks; we all agree on that.
But this administration is effectively saying, and the attorney general has said it today, it doesn't have to follow the law. ”

“ The Crime Commission has concluded that "only in New York have law enforcement officials been able to mount a relatively continuous and relatively successful attack on an organized crime problem," that "electronic surveillance techniques * * * have been the tools" making possible such an attack, and that practice under New York's § 813-a has achieved a proper balance between the interests of "privacy and justice." ”

“ What if Congress passed a law which just excluded FISA from any electronic surveillance of international communications where one party to the communications is a member of or affiliated with Al Qaida or a related terrorist group; and further, if we went on and provided that there would be normal oversight by both the House and the Senate Intelligence Committee, periodically that the administration would report to the Intelligence Committees on the progress of that program?
DEWINE: We, obviously, have the ability within the committee to keep such things classified. We do it all the time. ”

“ It is usually the product of calculated, official decision rather than the error of an individual agent of the state. And because by nature it is hidden, unlawful electronic surveillance is even more offensive to a free society than the unlawful search and seizure of tangible material. ”

“ Attorney General.
GRASSLEY: Thank you.
It appear to me that FISA generally requires that, if surveillance is initiated under the Emergency Authorization provisions and an order is not obtained from the FISA Court, that the judge must, quote, "cause to be served on any U.S. person named in the application and on such other U.S. persons subject to electronic surveillance as the judge and the court," quote, "believes warranted the fact of the application; two, the period of the surveillance; and, three, the fact that during the period information was or was not obtained." ”

“ This means for instance that evidence, which of itself might not be of any particular use in actually identifying the threat, might nevertheless require to be protected if the mere divulging of the fact that C.S.I.S. is in possession of it would alert the targeted organization to the fact that it is in fact subject to electronic surveillance or to a wiretap or to a leak from some human source within the organization. ”

“ For one thing, electronic surveillance is almost inherently indiscriminate, so that compliance with the requirement of particularity in the Fourth Amendment would be difficult; for another, words, which are the objects of an electronic seizure, are ordinarily mere evidence and not the fruits or instrumentalities of crime, and so they are impermissible objects of lawful searches under any circumstances, see p. ”

“ In this paraphrase, the language and structure of the passage has been significantly altered, making it an original expression of the ideas. The ideas have, of course, been properly credited.
Source:
"In earlier times, surveillance was limited to the information that a supervisor could observe and record firsthand and to primitive counting devices. In the computer age surveillance can be instantaneous, unblinking, cheap, and, maybe most importantly, easy." — From Carol Botan and Mihaela Vorvoreanu, "What do Employees Think about Electronic Surveillance at Work"? p. ”

“ Why didn't you come to this Congress and say, "There are certain things we need to change," which you characterized as cumbersome and burdensome in FISA? Why didn't you work with us to make the law better and stronger and more effective when you knew that you had a bipartisan consensus behind you?
GONZALES: Senator, the primary criminal provision in FISA, Section 109, 50 USC 1809, it is page 179 if you've got one of these books, provides that "a person is guilty of offense if he intentionally engages in electronic surveillance under cover of law except as authorized by statute." ”

“ That law was signed by President Carter with a signing statement that that was the exclusive way for electronic surveillance.
There is beyond, a constitutional issue as to whether the president has inherent powers under Article 2 of the Constitution to undertake a program of this sort. If the president has constitutional authority, that trumps and supersedes the statute. The Constitution is the fundamental law of the country, and a statute cannot be inconsistent with a constitutional provision. ”

“ AREA SECURITY SURVEILLANCE EQUIPMENT The area security surveillance system is a ground electronic system, operating on the doppler principle, to provide security surveillance within specified areas of the launch complex. Visual and audible alarms are provided in the control center which are activated when an intrusion occurs in any of the monitored areas. All indicators and controls are mounted on one annunciator panel located on the MFL rack above the MFL-1 drawer. ”

“ Nor has man's ingenuity in the development of surveillance equipment been exhausted with the design and manufacture of electronic devices for wiretapping or for eavesdropping within buildings or vehicles. ”