dment,” (ACLU 6). Electronic surveillance such as wiretaps and keys to encrypted messages intrude not only on the lives of the targeted party, but it also intrudes on the lives of any persons who electronically communicate with the party under surveillance (ACLU 6). Regardless of the constitutionality of electronic surveillance, the Governments behavior on this subject is questionable.In 1934, The Communications Act deemed wiretapping illegal and it remained so for 34 years. The FBI disregarded this law and “relied on directive executives” to conduct wiretaps anyway. A later review of FBI policies concerning wiretaps revealed that the “agency was much more involved in wiretapping than previously had been thought and that the agency had used the information it gathered from wiretaps to advance its own political and bureaucratic objective,” (Huffman 2). Even after the enactment of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which legalized wiretapping, the Government abused the use of electronic surveillance. Statistics reported from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts show that “from 1985 to 1995, more than 12 million conversations were intercepted through law enforcement wiretaps, and all but a relative handful were completely innocent,” (ACLU 4). One may think the innocent would be protected because Government Agents are required by law to obtain a warrant to conduct electronic surveillance. The innocent are not protected because the request for a warrant is rarely rejected. In fact, as of March 1998, “only one request by law enforcement for an intercept [was] rejected in the [previous] eight years,” (ACLU 4). The way Government Agencies have handled wiretapping policies and civilian privacy may be detrimental. The Government’s involvement may also foreshadow its involvement with other forms of electronic surveillance. Development Of Encryption And The Gov...
