State courts authorized a dramatic increase in the use of
electronic surveillance last year, mostly to listen in on cell
phones, pagers and other wireless devices, according to a government
report released today.
In its annual Wiretap Report, the Administrative Office of the
U.S. Courts said state courts approved 1,005 wiretap applications
last year, up from 711 in the previous year.
Federal judges, by contrast, approved 486 wiretap requests, just six
more than in 2000.
The report indicates criminals are using anything but plain old telephone lines: 68 percent of all wiretaps last year authorized
police to eavesdrop on portable communications devices such as cell phones, pagers and cordless phones.
Conversely, the number of wiretaps used for eavesdropping on private
residences was down from the previous year.
"I think it's safe to say wiretapping has gone mobile," said Marc
Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center. "This is the sharpest increase since the first year these
reports were created."
Most wiretaps approved last year were for narcotics cases: Nearly 80
percent of all applications for intercepts in 2001 cited drug
offenses as the most serious offense under investigation.
Gambling and racketeering were the second and third most frequently
cited offense in wiretap applications last year, while homicide and
assault cases accounted for slightly more than 3 percent of all
wiretaps.
Though authorities issued 300 more wiretaps last year than in 2000,
the number of convictions obtained through intercepts declined.
Most intercepts in 2001 were in operation for 9 percent fewer days per wiretap
than in 2000. The number of communications intercepted per wiretap
fell by 12 percent. In addition, the average length of authorization was down by one day
from 2000, according to the report.
The report does not include surveillance obtained through so-called
"trap and trace" or "pen register" orders, which allow police to view
telephone numbers dialed by a suspect, for example.
Antiterorrism legislation passed by Congress last year extended that
authority to investigators seeking the Internet address of an
e-mail's sender and recipient.
Unlike wiretaps, the law does not require authorities to convince a
judge to grant them pen register or trap and trace authority. Under
the law, judges are obliged to grant such requests if police claim
the information is "relevant" to an ongoing criminal investigation.
But because authorities are not obligated to report surveillance
requests obtained with the consent of at least one of the key
parties to the communication, the true scope of electronic
surveillance being conducted online may never be accurately
known, Rotenberg said.
"We could realistically be talking about hundreds of thousands
- perhaps even millions - of requests from ISPs (Internet service
providers) that are not recorded each year," he said.
