8 May 1999
Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 12:52:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: FC: Stewart Baker replies to 1998 wiretap figures [Perhaps. But given that all you have to do to get a wiretap is fill in some blanks on a form, I can't imagine that the barrier is as high as Stu would have us believe. Or maybe the Justice Departemnt attorneys are very good at this type of bureaucratic pole-vaulting. --Declan] --------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 08:28:09 -0400 From: "Baker, Stewart" <SBaker@steptoe.com> To: "'declan@well.com'" <declan@well.com>, politech@vorlon.mit.edu Cc: "Albertazzie, Sally" <SAlbertazzie@steptoe.com> Subject: RE: US government releases 1998 wiretap figures Declan, I see you've circulated the latest wiretap stats with the usual lifted eyebrow about how many taps have been approved and how few denied. For years, of course, the government has insisted that few taps are denied because the Justice Department exercises such strict control over what taps it requests, especially for foreign intelligence. That argument has been largely laughed off or ignored by folks with your views. But now I think it would only be fair for you to note that we now have (unfortunate) confirmation that the Justice Department does indeed erect a high barrier to such taps. Despite very troubling information suggesting that DOE's Wen Ho Lee was a spy for China, the Justice Department refused to take that evidence to the FISA court or to authorize a search of his computer. We may have paid a very high price for the Department's vigilance in protecting Lee's rights and independently scrutinizing wiretap applications. In that context, your lifted eyebrow approach to the small number of denials is at best onesided. Stewart Baker -----Original Message----- From: Declan McCullagh [mailto:declan@well.com] Sent: Thursday, May 06, 1999 12:27 AM To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: FC: US government releases 1998 wiretap figures [The figures are especially interesting if you take into account the mean number of conversations intercepted per wiretap -- thousands, if I recall properly. We ran the 1997 numbers in Time Magazine; you can probably find them in the Notebook archives at time.com/magazine. --Declan] >Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 22:57:40 -0400 >To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net >From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com> >Subject: Wiretap 98 > >The US 1998 Wiretap Report is available: > > http://jya.com/wiretap98.htm (31K) > >Total federal and state is up to 1,329 from 1,186 in 1997. Two >requests were denied. That makes five denials in the last ten >years compared to 11,000 authorizations. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo@vorlon.mit.edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------