Patriot - Section 206

spy1 · Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2004 12:47 pm Post subject: Patriot - Section 206

* Let the Sun Set on PATRIOT - Section 206:
"Roving Surveillance Authority Under the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978"

~ What Section 206 Does

Section 206 authorizes intelligence investigators to conduct
"John Doe" roving surveillance - meaning that the FBI can
wiretap every single phone line, mobile communications device
or Internet connection that a suspect might be using, without
ever having to identify the suspect by name. This gives the
FBI a "blank check" to violate the communications privacy of
countless innocent Americans. What's worse, these blank-check
wiretap orders can remain in effect for up to a year.

~ How Section 206 Changed the Law

Section 206 amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA) so that a wiretap order issued by the secret FISA court
no longer has to specify what type of communications that the
order applies to. This allows investigators to engage in
"roving" surveillance, using a single wiretap order to listen
in on any phone line or monitor any Internet account that a
suspect may be using - whether or not other people who are not
suspects also regularly use it.

~ Why Section 206 Should Sunset

Roving wiretaps are allowed in regular criminal investigations,
so it might seem reasonable that the PATRIOT Act made them
available to intelligence investigators. But FISA wiretaps lack
many of the safeguards that prevent abuse of criminal wiretaps.
For example:

(a) orders are issued using a lower legal standard than
the "probable cause" used in criminal cases;

(b ) are subject to
substantially less judicial oversight and typically last at least
three times longer than criminal wiretaps.

(c ) Surveillance targets
are never notified that they were spied on (either the "guilty" or the innocent ones!).

(d)Most important, and
also unlike criminal wiretaps, the FISA court can issue "John
Doe" wiretaps that don't even specify the surveillance target's
name.

The bottom line: further relaxing controls on FISA surveillance
by adding roving capability is a recipe for abuse and likely
violates the Fourth Amendment's requirement that search warrants
"particularly describ[e] the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized."

~ Conclusion

EFF strongly opposes renewal of Section 206, and urges you to
do the same. We also support the Security and Freedom Ensured
Act (SAFE Act, S 1709/HR 3352), a PATRIOT reform bill that would,
among other things, limit the damage done to privacy by Section
206 - it would allow the FBI to get roving wiretaps on identified
suspects, and John Doe taps on specific phone lines and Internet
accounts, but not John Doe roving taps. We encourage you to
visit EFF's Action Center today to let your representatives know
you support the bill:
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2866

~ Next Week

We'll look at Section 207, which extends the period of time that
FISA wiretaps can last.
(Emphasis - bolding and italics - mine). Pete


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