Associated Press Writer
November 2, 1995
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI wants the capability to simultaneously tap one of every 100 phone and data transmission lines in major urban centers, but a top Justice Department official said there are no plans to expand the existing number of wiretaps.
As part of its effort to deal with a new breed of computer-savvy criminals adept at using new telecommunications technologies, the FBI said it wants phone companies to initially set aside 0.5 percent, or one of every 200 lines, for law enforcement use in high-crime urban areas. But it added it also wants the ability to rapidly expand that capability to one of every 100 lines if the need arises. The disclosure was made in a little-noticed announcement in the Federal Register.
Despite the notice, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick said today, "There is no intention to expand the number of wiretaps or the extent of wiretapping ... . I don't think the American people should be worried about that."
Last year, federal and state courts authorized 1,154 wiretaps, of which 48 percent were sought by federal agents. Increases in recent years have mostly come in drug trafficking cases. Gorelick acknowledged: "As we've gotten more aggressive in the drug war, as organized gang activity has been an increased focus for us, we've seen a slight increase."
The FBI proposal, unveiled on three pages of the thick daily compendium of federal regulations and other government activities for Oct. 16, had been long anticipated since the passage last year of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.
"The entire purpose of the digital telephony legislation was to leave law enforcement in the same position it is now with respect to wiretaps: That is, to ensure that emerging digital technology would not defeat current lawful wiretaps," Gorelick said, noting that court approval would still be required for any wiretap. "There appears to be some misunderstanding or miscommunication as to the implications of what is contained in that notice."
But experts familiar with the law did not expect the FBI's reach into the world new fiber optic cables, digital switches and high-speed modems for transmitting business transactions as well as voices to be so sweeping.
"The level of capacity that the FBI is proposing here would come as a surprise to many who supported the legislation," said James X. Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for National Security Studies, a group that monitors government surveillance activities.
While the federal notice does not specify which cities would be targeted, Dempsey said New York is likely to be one of them. Assuming there are 2 million separate phone and data transmission lines there, that means the FBI wants the ability to tap 20,000 of them simultaneously, he said.
"People are starting to say that seems awfully high," Dempsey said, noting that the overall level of such surveillance activity is now a total of 20,000 to 25,000 intercepts nationwide over an entire year.
The FBI said in its official notice that its capability needs were based on "an historical baseline of electronic surveillance activity" after surveying federal, state and local courts, prosecutors and police agencies.
It did not offer a further explanation, but during hearings over the past four years leading to passage of the 1994 law, FBI and other officials cited the growing incidence of computer-based crimes.
The law was intended to remove what law enforcement officials have considered a major impediment - the growing obsolescence of the copper phone wire - in probing drug trafficking, organized crime, terrorism, kidnaping and sophisticated new types of white-collar crime.
"Without this bill ... we would have been completely prevented in a very short time from carrying out any court-approved wiretapping," FBI Director Louis Freeh said at the time.
While law enforcement officers will still have to get court approval for any wiretaps they install, the technological measures authorized by the law would remove the objections of some judges.
Copper telephone lines were relatively easy to tap because they carried only one conversation. But digital switches and fiber optics now in growing use often carry hundreds of conversations or data transmissions at the same time, making it difficult to isolate a single phone line.
The law authorized $500 million for the government to pay the phone companies their cost in installing the necessary technology, but none of the money has been appropriated.
And with increased criticism focused on the FBI for its role in the 1993 Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas, and the 1992 deadly standoff against white separatist Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, there is no assurance Congress will be forthcoming with the money.
Legislation sent by President Clinton to Congress seeking greater wiretap authority in the wake of the April bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City is languishing in congressional committees and is given little prospect of being passed this year.