Wiretapping

“ But wiretapping and electronic 'bugging' invariably involve a search for mere evidence. The objects to be 'seized' cannot be particularly described; all the suspect's conversations are intercepted. The search is not confined to a particular time, but may go on for weeks or months. The citizen is completely unaware of the invasion of his privacy. The invasion of privacy is not limited to him, but extends to his friends and acquaintances-to anyone who happens to talk on the telephone with the suspect or who happens to come within the range of the electronic device. ”

“ Federal law, as we have seen, prohibits interception and divulging or publishing of the content of wiretaps without exception. [6] In sum, it is fair to say that wiretapping on the whole is outlawed, except for permissive use by law enforcement officials in some states; while electronic eaesdropping is-save for seven states-permitted both officially and privately. And, in six of the seven states, electronic eavesdropping ('bugging') is permissible on court order.
The law, though jealous of individual privacy, has not kept pace with these advances in scientific knowledge. ”

“ In its recent wiretapping and eavesdropping legislation, Congress has provided only that an 'aggrieved person' may move to suppress the contents of a wire or oral communication intercepted in violation of the Act. ”

“ As science developed these detection techniques, law makers, sensing the resulting invasion of individual privacy, have provided some statutory protection for the public. Seven states, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, and Oregon, prohibit surreptitious eavesdropping by mechanical or electronic device. [4] However, all save Illinois permit official courtordered eavesdropping. Some 36 states prohibit wiretapping. [5] But of these, 27 permit 'authorized' interception of some type. ”

“ Three: Immunity supporters claim that a lack of immunity will make the telecoms less likely to cooperate with surveillance in the future.
But remember: Since the 1970s, FISA has compelled telecoms to cooperate with warranted surveillance, and it has immunized them. The issue today is not wiretapping—it is warrantless wiretapping. And the warrant is essential, because that is what brings the president’s power under the rule of law.
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Four: Immunity supporters argue that the telecoms can’t defend themselves without exposing state secrets. ”

“ In fact, in 2004, two years after you authorized the secret warrantless wiretapping program -- and this is a tape we're told we can't show -- the president said, quote, "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." ”

“ Mr. Attorney General, in America, our America, nobody is above the law, not even the president of the United States.
There is much that we did not know about the president's secret spying program. I hope we're going to get some more answers, some real answers, not self-serving characterizations.
Let's start with what we do know.
Point one: The president's secret wiretapping program is not authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The law expressly states it provides the exclusive source of authority for wiretapping for intelligence purposes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are two causal pathways based on the two types of alleged injury. In the first: (1) the NSA's warrantless wiretapping, (2) creates in the plaintiffs a "well founded belief" that their overseas telephone and email communications are being intercepted, which (3) requires the plaintiffs to refrain from these communications (i.e., chills communication) , and (4) compels the plaintiffs to travel overseas to meet personally with these contacts in order to satisfy their professional responsibilities, thereby (5) causing the plaintiffs to incur additional costs. ”

“ I would deny this petition for certiorari, but, given the Solicitor General's acknowledgment that electronic eavesdropping or wiretapping did in fact take place, I would remand the case to the District Court for a full hearing as to the circumstances and effects of these activities. ”

“ A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for legal analysis and other documents concerning the NSA warrantless wiretapping program from the White House, Vice President Richard Cheney, The Department of Justice, and the National Security Council. ”

“ Bulletin boards are cram-full of EVIDENCE. All that busy trading of electronic mail, all those hacker boasts, brags and struts, even the stolen codes and cards, can be neat, electronic, real-time recordings of criminal activity. As an investigator, when you seize a pirate board, you have scored a coup as effective as tapping phones or intercepting mail. However, you have not actually tapped a phone or intercepted a letter. The rules of evidence regarding phone-taps and mail interceptions are old, stern and well-understood by police, prosecutors and defense attorneys alike. ”

“ Whenever a telephone line is tapped, the privacy of the persons at both ends of the line is invaded, and all conversations between them upon any subject, and although proper, confidential, and privileged, may be overheard. Moreover, the tapping of one man's telephone line involves the tapping of the telephone of every other person whom he may call, or who may call him. As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wire tapping. ”

“ When police officers march through the front door of a hacker's home today, they may be better prepared than their predecessors, but they will also be facing bigger hurdles. Today, top hackers encrypt everything sensitive. The data on their hard drives, their live data connections, even their voice conversations.
So, if hackers are still hacking, who are their targets?
It is a broad field. Any type of network provider—X.25, cellular phone or large Internet provider. Computer vendors—the manufacturers of software and hardware, routers, gateways, firewalls or phone switches. ”

“ Phreaking is loosely defined as hacking the telephone system. It is a very loose definition. Some people believe phreaking includes stealing a credit card number and using it to make a long-distance call for free. Purists shun this definition. To them, using a stolen credit card is not phreaking, it is carding. They argue that phreaking demands a reasonable level of technical skill and involves manipulation of a telephone exchange. This manipulation may manifest itself as using computers or electrical circuits to generate special tones or modify the voltage of a phone line. ”

“ The contracts between telephone companies and users contemplate the private use of the facilities employed in the service. The communications belong to the parties between whom they pass. During their transmission the exclusive use of the wire belongs to the persons served by it. Wire tapping involves interference with the wire while being used. Tapping the wires and listening in by the officers literally constituted a search for evidence. ”

“ Culprits can even smuggle out secrets by hiding them in apparently routine reports. “Data leakage,” he says, “might be conducted through use of Trojan horse, logic bomb, and scavenging methods.”
You don’t have to be in the Vietcong or KGB, of course, to spy on a computer by radio. Today a smart snoop can walk casually into your computer area and leave behind a miniature transmitter—perhaps hooked up to the maze of wires that snake under the floor of many modern offices. ”

“ EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT WANTS ISPs TO SPY The European Parliament last Friday passed the Lawful Interception of Communications council resolution on new technologies — known as Enfopol — which requires Internet service providers and telephone companies to provide law-enforcement agencies with full-time, real-time access to Internet transmissions, even those traversing along multiple networks. In addition, wireless communications providers are required to provide geographical location information on cell phone users, along with decoding of messages, if encryption is provided as part of the service. ”

“ In circumstances involving the unintentional acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes, and if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States, such contents shall be destroyed upon recognition, unless the Attorney General determines that the contents indicate a threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person. ”

“ The question whether the traditional powers of wire-tapping can be applied to tapping other telecommunication services and computer systems is answered differently in various countries. No computer-specific issues arise in legal systems in which the statutory law permits, for example, "surveillance of the telecommunication traffic including the recording of its content". ”

“ The context of dial-in services, where a caller seeks and is willing to pay for the communication, is manifestly different from a situation in which a listener does not want the received message. Placing a telephone call is not the same as turning on a radio and being taken by surprise by an indecent message. Unlike an unexpected outburst on a radio broadcast, the message received by one who places a call to a dial-a-porn service is not so invasive or surprising that it prevents an unwilling listener from avoiding exposure to it. ”

“ For the average citizen in the 1870s, the telephone was weirder, more shocking, more "high-tech" and harder to comprehend, than the most outrageous stunts of advanced computing for us Americans in the 1990s. In trying to understand what is happening to us today, with our bulletin-board systems, direct overseas dialling, fiber-optic transmissions, computer viruses, hacking stunts, and a vivid tangle of new laws and new crimes, it is important to realize that our society has been through a similar challenge before—and that, all in all, we did rather well by it. ”

“ Any attorney for the Government (as such term is defined for the purposes of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure) may authorize an application to a Federal judge of competent jurisdiction for, and such judge may grant, in conformity with section 2518 of this title, an order authorizing or approving the interception of electronic communications by an investigative or law enforcement officer having responsibility for the investigation of the offense as to which the application is made, when such interception may provide or has provided evidence of any Federal felony. ”

“ In enacting § 605 Congress sought to protect society at large against the evils of wire-tapping and kindred unauthorized intrusions into private intercourse conducted by means of the modern media of communication, telephone, telegraph, and radio. To that end the statute prohibits not only the interception and the divulgence of private messages without the consent of the sender, but also the use of information so acquired by any person not entitled to it. ”

“ Acts of phreak revenge against straight people are rare, but voice-mail systems are especially tempting and vulnerable, and an infestation of angry phreaks in one's voice-mail system is no joke. They can erase legitimate messages; or spy on private messages; or harass users with recorded taunts and obscenities. They've even been known to seize control of voice-mail security, and lock out legitimate users, or even shut down the system entirely.
Cellular phone-calls, cordless phones, and ship-to-shore telephony can all be monitored by various forms of radio ”

“ All wiretaps are secret, and the plaintiffs are not challenging the secret nature, but only the warrantless nature, of the TSP. Because all wiretaps are secret, neither the plaintiffs nor their overseas contacts would know -- with or without warrants -- whether their communications were being tapped, and the secret possession of a warrant would have no more effect on the subjective willingness or unwillingness of these parties to "freely engage in conversations and correspond via email" than would the secret absence of that warrant. ”

“ With respect to remote wiping, the Government's primary concern turns on the actions of third parties who are not present at the scene of arrest. And data encryption is even further afield. There, the Government focuses on the ordinary operation of a phone's security features, apart from any active attempt by a defendant or his associates to conceal or destroy evidence upon arrest. ”

“ Tapping telecommunication lines and eavesdropping on computer systems can assist criminal investigations, especially in cases where data are only transmitted and not permanently stored, where data merely cross a country or where permanent observation of telecommunications or computer activities is necessary. ”

“ Radio cops, telco people, whatever—they’re going to try to discredit us. I want to know what they’re liable to say.”
“Christ, you’re dragging me out for that? I can tell you what they’ll say. They’ll drag out the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: kiddie porn, terrorists, pirates, and the mafia. They’ll tell us that any tool for communicating that they can’t tap, log, and switch off is irresponsible. They’ll tell us we’re stealing from ISPs. It’s what they say every time someone tries this: Philly, New York, London. All around the world same song.”
Alan nodded. ”

“ Modern telecommunications systems, like other computer systems, are also susceptible to abuse by remote access. The integration of telecommunications systems means that once one system is accessed, a computer operator with sufficient skill could infiltrate the entire telecommunications network of a city. The usual motive for telecommunications crime is to obtain free telecommunications services. However, more innovative telecommunications fraud has also been uncovered, and telecommunications systems have been used to disguise other forms of criminal activity. ”