** ACTION ALERT ** ACTION ALERT ** ACTION ALERT ** ACTION ALERT **

 Digital Telphony Funding & Expanded Wiretap Powers Sneak into Major Bill
 ************************************************************************

URGENT ACTION NEEDED IMMEDIATELY!                     DEADLINE: Sept. 30

  Please redistribute this alert to relevant forums. Please do not
  distribute after Oct. 5.  This alert produced & distributed
  by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org), and
  the American Civil Liberties Union (http://www.aclu.org)


* Executive summary:

The Administration is sneaking funding for expansion of wiretapping powers
into a huge appropriations bill, that must be passed with or without these
dangerous provisions.  Urge legislators to remove these controversial
sections before passage.

 1) Contact your own legislators. Lists at:
    http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_contact
    Urge them to pressure Congressional leaders and appropriations
    committee members to remove wiretap & wiretap funding provisions
    from the omnibus funding bill called the Continuing Resolution.

 2) Contact Congress leaders and CJS appropriations subcommittee members
    yourself, and ask them to remove these controversion provisions.

 3) Contact CJS appropriations subcommittee members, if you have time.
    (pointers to contact info below).


* Contents

     Intro
     What YOU Can Do NOW
     Background


* Intro

The Clinton Administration has managed to insert provisions for money and
a new slush fund for the CALEA ("Digital Telephony") wiretap-the-nation
plan, plus new "roving wiretap" powers and wiretap expansion to include
minor politically-motivated crimes, into a major funding bill that
Congress will definitely pass, with or without these provisions.

DEADLINE: Uncertain, but probably Mon., Sep. 30, at the latest. Friday,
Sept. 27, is the day to act.  If you receive this Sat. or Sun., please send
faxes to legislators, so they arrive before Mon.


* What YOU Can Do NOW


1. CONTACT YOUR SENATORS & REPRESENTATIVES

Contact your own legislators, and ask them to push Appropriations
committees and Congressional leadership to strip the CALEA money & slush
fund, roving wiretap, and wiretap expansion provisions from the
appropriations legislation before Congress adjourns.

Lists of legislators are available at
http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_contact (see the files
senate95.list and house95.list)

TALKING POINTS:

  * You are a constituent
  * You are watching the outcome of this legislation very closely.
  * You are an Internet user, and learned about this bill on the Net.
  * The provisions in question are dangerous, highly controversial, and
    do not belong in a funding bill. Hearings must be held.
  * These four provisions need to be removed: establishment of CALEA slush
    fund (formally, Telecommunications Carrier Compliantce Fund), monies for
    CALEA implementation and slush fund, "roving" ("multipoint")
    wiretaps, and wiretap expansions to include minor crimes.
  * Refer to the bill as the "Continuing Resolution".

Please be polite and reasoned, and keep it short. Get your concerns
across rapidly. There is no time left for long deliberations, just yes
or no on this measure.


2. CONTACT CONGRESIONAL LEADERSHIP

Also call and/or fax Congressional leadership.  These senior legislators
have the power to include or exclude the roving wiretap, wiretap
expansion, and CALEA money & slush fund provisions. See talking
points in step 1.


    SENATE

 Party State   Name                        Voice         Fax
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

     R MS Lott, Trent                1-202-224-6253  1-202-224-2262
          (Majority Leader)
     R OK Nickles, Donald            1-202-224-5754  1-202-224-6008
          (Majority Whip)
     D SD Daschle, Thomas A.         1-202-224-2321  1-202-224-2047
          (Minority Leader)
     D KY Ford, Wendell H.           1-202-224-4343  1-202-224-0046
          (Minority Whip)
     R OR Hatfield, Mark O.          1-202-224-3753  1-202-224-0276
          (Chair, Appropriations Committee)
     D WV Byrd, Robert C.            1-202-224-3954  1-202-224-4025
          (Ranking Member, Approp. Cmte.)
     R NH Gregg, Judd                1-202-224-3324  1-202-224-4952
          (Chair, Commerce, Justice & State Approp. Subcommittee)
     D SC Hollings, Ernest F.        1-202-224-6121  1-202-224-4293
          (Ranking Member, CJS Approp. Subcmte.)
     R UT Hatch, Orrin G.            1-202-224-5251  1-202-224-6331
          (Chair, Judiciary Cmte.)
     D DE Biden Jr., Joseph R.       1-202-224-5042  1-202-224-0139
          (Ranking Member, Judiciary Cmte.)
     D VT Leahy, Patrick J.          1-202-224-4242  1-202-224-3595
          (a senior member of Sen. Jud. Cmte., co-sponsor of CALEA)

    HOUSE

 Dist. State Name (Party)                Voice         Fax
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

     6 GA Gingrich, Newt (R)         1-202-225-4501  1-202-225-4656
          (Speaker of the House)
    26 TX Armey, Richard K. (R)      1-202-225-7772  1-202-225-7614
          (Majority Leader)
    22 TX DeLay, Thomas (R)          1-202-225-5951  1-202-225-5241
          (Majority Whip)
     3 MO Gephardt, Richard A. (D)   1-202-225-2671  1-202-225-7452
          (Minority Leader)
    10 MI Bonior, David E. (D)       1-202-225-2106  1-202-226-1169
          (Minority Whip)
     1 LA Livingston, Robert (R)     1-202-225-3015  1-202-225-0739
          (Chair, Appropriations Committee)
     7 WI Obey, David R. (D)         1-202-225-3365  1-202-225-0561
          (Ranking Member, Approp. Cmte.)
     5 KY Rogers, Harold (R)         1-202-225-4601  1-202-225-0940
          (Chair, Commerce, Justice & State Approp. Subcommittee)
     1 WV Mollohan, Alan B. (D)      1-202-225-4172  1-202-225-7564
          (Ranking Member, CJS Approp. Subcmte.)
     6 IL Hyde, Henry J. (R)         1-202-225-4561  1-202-226-1240
          (Chair, Judiciary Cmte.)
    14 MI Conyers Jr., John (D)      1-202-225-5126  1-202-225-0072
          (Ranking Member, Judiciary Cmte.)
     9 NY Schumer, Charles E. (D)    1-202-225-6616  1-202-225-4183
          (a senior member of the Jud. Cmte.)
    47 CA Cox, Christopher (R)       1-202-225-5611  1-202-225-9177
          (Chair, Republican Policy Cmte.)


3. CALL & FAX SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS

Call & fax the members of the Senate and House Commerce, Justice & State
Appropriations Subcommitees (of the S. & H. Appropriations Committees)
and ask them to REMOVE all CALEA funding and other wiretap-related
provisions from the appropriations bill. These provisions do not
belong in a last minute funding bill. They are highly controversial,
undermine American civil liberties, and must be subject to full hearings
and public input, in committees suited to these issues.

See step 1, above, for talking points.

Lists of the Subcommittee members & their contact info are available at:
http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_contact/Congress_cmtes/sapcjs.96
http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_contact/Congress_cmtes/hapcjs.96

We realize this is a lot of calls, faxes or at least emails.  If you
don't have time or resources for this level of activism, please be sure
that in step 2 you contacted the full Appropriation Committees' and
the CJS Subcommittees' chairmen and ranking members, as well as Lott,
Gingrich, and Armey.  That's just 10 people including your own
legislators.  Probably less time than it takes to make and eat lunch
or watch a sitcom.


* Background

Having funding for the controversial Communications Assistance to Law
Enforcement Act (CALEA, previously called the Digital Telephony Bill)
rejected in prior 1996 legislation, the Dept. of Justice has snuck two
CALEA funding provisions - and more - into an omnibus spending bill. The
latest version of the amendment goes far beyond asking for the
half-billion dollars Congress promised in 1995, and would create a slush
fund, drawing on the budgets of "any agency" with "law enforcement, national
security or intelligence responsibilities", including everyone from
agencies like NSA with enormous, classified (virtually bottomless) budgets
not subject to public accountability, to the Department of the Treasury
itself, as well as CIA, DEA, FBI and others. This fund would be fueled by
"left-over" money better re-directed to reducing the deficit.
Additionally, the amendment would seed the fund and pay for some initial
CALEA network re-engineering with $40mil in direct monies.

Worse yet, the amendment provides for roving wiretaps, which the drafters
of CALEA specfically and clearly rejected. This "mulitipoint wiretap"
provision would allow police to tap any phone used by a suspect, even
temporarily, including the phones of neighbors, or public payphones,
regardless of who else might use them, without having to seek additional
court authorization.  Additionally, the new language redefines, in
political rather than criminal law terms, the crimes that would support
a wiretap order. As with the poor definitions in several recent terrorism
bills, this change creates a severe risk of wiretap-centered investigations
of citizens for their political opinions rather than for real crimes.

Timing: It is uncertain when these bills will pass, but Congress must
pass an appropriations resolution before adjourning. At least one house
of Congress may pass the bill, with or without wiretapping provisions,
today, and both houses may pass it by Monday.  Differences between the
versions will be resolved rapidly in joint conference committee, either
this weekend or early next week, and the final version passed in a
flurry. The CALEA and related provisions have to be stripped *NOW*.

Note for non-US citizens: If you, too, wish to take some action on this
alert, if may be of value to do two things: Contact US Congressional
leaders and express concern that the Administration's "wiretap everyone"
CALEA agenda sets a horrible example for the rest of the world.  And,
contact your own country's diplomatic corps, and ask them to pressure
the Clinton Administration to back down on this issue and give it the public
airing it requires. Please also be aware that the Clinton Administration
is pushing the ITU to adopt international standards that would introduce
CALEA-style wiretapping around the world.  Your own parliamentarians
need to hear your opposition to the introduction of CALEA "clones" in
your country.


ACT TODAY!