Privacy: March 2008 Archives

Needless wiretapping and surveillance techniques cause more harm than good by drawing resources away from focused investigations and creating mistrust of the judicial system. The United States is not the only country wiretapping its people. After September 11th, other countries made similar precautions, such as Germany. Niels Sorrells explained the situation in Germany in "German Tap Lessons" saying, "German authorities cannot point to a single successful prosecution of a terror suspect identified from... blind wiretaps. The colossal volume of information produced from tens of thousands of these taps often obscures real threats, while dead ends are pursued. Authorities quite simply do not have the time to listen to and process it all. In the one case in which such surveillance was used to detect a terror plot... the authorities-thanks to old-fashioned investigative methods-already knew the identities of the... plotters. It's hardly a ringing endorsement for the kind of all-encompassing, warrantless surveillance that the United States government wants its citizens to accept. (4) Many times, rather than surveillance techniques aiding in investigations, it jeopardizes them. When certain laws are overlooked or broken, there are eventually consequences. Discoveries concerning organizations such as the NSA make many people question the true motives of other wiretapping programs that are supposedly put there to fight terrorism. "In criminal cases that can put terrorists behind bars, judges now have to worry that evidence was based on illegal wiretaps. Evidence might be excluded or convictions overturned."(8) Courts often do not know when to believe the government when it says where evidence has come from, and in numerous cases the government refuses to reveal even that, claiming it is a matter of national security, as they did in the case with Maher Arar. Judges who believe in the rule of law may feel obligated to be stricter with the government when they cannot trust its statements. This mistrust leads to lack of cooperation and less efficient trials, hindering the prosecution of terrorists rather than helping it. Not only does wiretapping hinder prosecution of terrorists, it wastes valuable investigative resources. "A January 17 story in the New York Times highlighted the huge amount of time and resources devoted to the program, apparently with minimal results. In the days after 9/11, the FBI decided to follow up on every lead... Long lists of phone numbers continued to be generated by the NSA program, however. According to a senior prosecutor: 'It affected the F.B.I. in the sense that they had to devote so many resources to tracking every single one of these leads, and, in my experience, they were all dry leads. "'(8) Even after September 11th, "the N.S.A. material continued to be viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new bunch of tips meant more calls to Pizza Hut."(8) Although the government tries to convince the American people that their surveillance techniques are helpful to finding terrorists, the chance is one in a million. They are wasting resources and money chasing ghosts and dead ends, rarely finding any plausible suspects.