A POWERFUL NATION ORDERS ITS telephone companies to provide it with foolproof wiretap access to the national communications infrastructure. The national police agency, which in recent years has been dramatically increasing the number of wiretaps, then demands the resources to tap one out of every 100 telephone lines in the country's most populous areas.
The government claims it needs these new powers to combat domestic terrorism, but its own records show that only a microscopic portion of its wiretaps could have anything to do with what might be called terrorist activity.The same government wants to force its domestic cellular industry to turn its new digital phones into modern-day homing devices that will allow it to track the movement of users. The whole enterprise is to be paid for out of secret slush funds at the disposal of the nation's spy agencies.
All this is being played out against a backdrop of suspicion that the government in power has been misusing secret investigatory files from that same national police agency against its political enemies.
What country is this? Is it the old Soviet Union? Perhaps it is China or maybe it is the plot of some fantastic novel.
This is no fantasy. This is taking place right here and now in America. And the latest chapter occurred this fall when Congress passed an enormous omnibus appropriations bill.
How did this happen? Two years ago, the FBI and the intelligence agencies persuaded Congress to pass "digital telephony" legislation that requires modern digital telephone networks - the backbone of the coming information superhighway - to be constructed with built-in wiretap access.
For the first time in our history, our law endorsed the radical notion that the government could require an entire industry to alter its technology so the government could continue to snoop. This is akin to requiring building contractors to place listening devices in the walls of the new homes they construct so the bugs could be turned on one day if the government wanted to listen in.
That's not all. Late last year, the FBI proposed follow-up regulations that would give it the capacity to listen in on as many as 1 percent of lines in large metropolitan areas like New York and other prime target areas. This is a capacity far greater than the KGB - the Soviet Secret Police - was believed to have at the height of its power. This power would reside in the hands of the same FBI that brought us Ruby Ridge and Waco and which is now embroiled in the Filegate controversy.
The recently approved appropriations bill allows any unspent funds in the hands of a law enforcement or intelligence agency to be used to pay for these new high tech wiretap schemes. The appropriations bill is virtually a "blank check" for wiretapping because funds would come - without effective public oversight.
All this legislative activity takes place in the context of greatly increased use of federal wiretap authority. From 1984 to 1994, the number of federal law enforcement electronic surveillance intercepts doubled, and last year the Clinton administration set a record for wiretapping.
The Clinton administration must heed history's lessons and begin to adhere to basic principles of the country's Constitution and protect its citizens from government tyranny and wholesale invasion of privacy. When Congress returns in January, it should begin its work by repairing some of the damage done over the past four years.