IP: LA wiretaps update

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

From: David Wagner <daw () cs berkeley edu>
To: farber () cis upenn edu




There's a very good article in the LA New Times which your IP readers may
be interested in.  It gives an update on the news that for years the LAPD
has been surreptiously wiretapping ten of thousands of people, without
telling anyone.  Now the LAPD is fighting to defend its actions...


Folks following the CALEA debates (remember the FBI's demands for capacity
to wiretap 1% of all phone calls, etc.?) may find the information especially
timely.


Excerpts:
  Thanks to D.A. Gil Garcetti and the LAPD, Los Angeles is the wiretap
  capital of America.  But it's not just criminals who're being spied on.
     [...]
  Bound by statute to employ taps only as an investigative means of last
  resort, prosecutors and police seemingly use them as a first resort --
  handing off tips to narcotics officers who open cases on suspects they
  otherwise would never have known about.  In the process, the LAPD and
  D.A.'s office have systematically denied a still unknown number of
  defendants their constitutional rights and eavesdropped on countless
  local residents with no criminal involvement -- without bothering to
  notify them they were tapped, as required by law.


The story:
  http://www.newtimesla.com/1998/081398/feature1-1.html


The public defender's web page on the case:
  http://pd.co.la.ca.us/index.htm