Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 00:16:26 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: How The Feds Misrepresented Anti-Privacy Provisions of 1994 Law
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

HOW THE FEDS MISREPRESENTED ANTI-PRIVACY PROVISIONS OF 1994 LAW

Congress is now contemplating passage of the Mobilization Against
Terrorism Act, which would (among other things) expand government
wiretapping and eavesdropping powers.

Unknown to most Americans, however, is that Congress had already
given law enforcement authorities broad powers to expand electronic
surveillance in the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act (CALEA), according to political economist Charlotte
Twight in the fall 2001 issue of THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW.

Among other powers, the CALEA gave the Federal Bureau of
Investigation authority to track the physical location of cell phone
users and to obtain the content of private communications in a
variety of circumstances without a probable-cause warrant. Yet when
testifying to Congress about the proposed CALEA, the FBI's
then-director Louis Freeh repeatedly claimed that CALEA would confer
no new authority on law enforcement officials, provide no information
about the physical location of cellular phone calls, and not weaken
existing privacy protections.

The CALEA episode, argues Twight, demonstrates that Congress is no
match for crafty machinations of bureaucrats expert in masking their
true intentions by hamstringing Congress's ability to understand the
meaning of new legislation -- what Twight calls an example of the
manipulation of "political transaction costs," such as the cost of
understanding the details of legislation.

"The confluence of CALEA, federally mandated electronic databases of
personal information, Carnivore, Digital Storm, Echelon, and the like
have established a web of federal surveillance never before known in
the United States," writes Twight.

"One way or another, we will soon learn that the
resistance-inhibiting power of broad-based government surveillance is
potentially the most liberty-endangering form of political
transaction-cost manipulation confronting Americans -- and
freedom-loving people everywhere -- in the new millennium."

See "Conning Congress: Privacy and the 1994 Communications Assistance
for Law Enforcement Act" by Charlotte Twight (THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW,
Fall 2001), at
<http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink3-38-4.html>.

Also see, "Watching You: Systematic Federal Surveillance of Ordinary
Americans" by Charlotte Twight (THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW, Fall 1999),
at <http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink3-38-5.html>.


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