Bush Signs Law to Widen Reach for Wiretapping

The New York times reported last week that:

“President Bush signed into law…legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.”

Although the new legislation allows for the warrantless survelliance of target communications reasonably believed to be overseas only, one has to wonder how abuse or errors will be prevented under the new law.

It appears as though only the procedures used, and not individual cases, will be reviewed ex-post facto. Without the need for a warrant, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of preventing abuse or errors at all. In fact, the new legislation might be considered a legalisation of “intelligence intercept.”

The impetus behind expanding and enhancing traditional surveillance measures, such as wiretapping, has undoubtedly been the events of 9/11. It would be interesting to uncover whether the enhancement of existing measures has, in fact, proven useful in increasing security. Unfortunately, in the rush to implement or enhance measures solid analysis of security approaches is seldom carried out. Often, the statistics necessary for such analysis are either heavily guarded by officials or not recorded at all – rendering accountability in security practically impossible.

The effects of this prevailing mentality among those implementing these laws might be surprisingly devestating on the social fabric in the long run.