REP McCOLLUM WORKS TO ENSURE PUBLIC SAFETY

Re: If Big Brother Has A Name, It's Bill McCollum (by Robyn E. Blumner,
April 15)

This column asserts that Rep. Bill McCollum is somehow "... hacking away at
privacy and the Constitution... " through his legislative efforts to
balance the privacy needs of law-abiding citizens with the public safety
needs of law enforcement. In our view, Rep. McCollum is a leader in the
efforts by some in Congress to provide continuing protection to our
citizens by allowing law enforcement to keep pace with the use of new
technologies by criminals and terrorists.

The constitutionally guaranteed public safety and privacy rights of our
nation's law-abiding citizens are not being needlessly tossed aside by
Congress and certainly not by Rep. McCollum. He, as chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on crime, was instrumental in bringing
about a small but necessary modification to the existing electronic
surveillance statute. The 1998 legislative modification to the
long-standing roving wiretap law neither created additional wiretapping
authorities for the FBI nor expanded our existing wiretapping authority. It
simply allows the police to keep up with drug dealers and other dangerous
criminals who use multiple telephones to further their criminal enterprise.

In 1986, Congress wisely authorized the use of court-approved "roving"
wiretaps to deal with sophisticated criminals who were attempting to
prevent law enforcement from lawfully intercepting their criminally related
telephone calls by constantly switching phones. Unfortunately, under the
1986 law, the police and other law enforcement agencies could only obtain
this authority if they could show that the criminal or terrorist was
changing telephones with the intent of thwarting law enforcement's
intercept efforts. That requirement forced law enforcement to determine
what was going on in the mind of the criminal or terrorist prior to the
court issuing a roving wiretap order, despite whatever behavior the police
had already observed regarding multiple telephone use.

As a result of the efforts of McCollum and many other members of both the
House and the Senate, instead of requiring intent, the law now requires a
showing that the suspected criminal or terrorist's actions have the effect
of thwarting law enforcement's intercept efforts. Nothing else changed. Law
enforcement must present to a judge probable-cause evidence that
communications sought to be intercepted are in furtherance of serious
criminal activity and that all other investigative techniques have been
tried and proven unsuccessful or they are too dangerous to employ. Even
then, law enforcement can only listen to the suspected criminal's
conversations that relate to the suspected serious criminal activity set
forth in the roving wiretap order and must end the wiretap on the telephone
when the suspected criminal is no longer using that specific telephone.

Further, Rep. McCollum has earned the respect of law enforcement for his
efforts to find a balanced solution to the encryption issue. Contrary to
Robyn Blumner's assertions, the law enforcement community fully supports
the use of strong encryption products by law-abiding citizens and
corporations for legitimate purposes. Encryption is extremely beneficial
when used legitimately to protect commercially sensitive, electronically
stored information (computer files) and the privacy of communications.
However, we are extremely concerned about the serious threat posed by the
proliferation and use of strong encryption products that do not provide a
means for court-authorized law enforcement access to the plaintext of
encrypted evidence. The potential use of such unbreakable encryption
products by a vast array of criminals and terrorists to conceal their
illegal activity poses an extremely serious and unacceptable threat to
public safety and national security.

Rather than abandon public safety in the face of advancing technology, Rep.
McCollum and others are trying to find a balanced solution to this problem,
one that addresses the needs for privacy and commerce but also public
safety and national security. We in the law enforcement community have
never asked that advances in encryption be abandoned or that the privacy
rights of any law-abiding citizen be threatened. We only ask that the
careful balance of the Fourth Amendment not be purposely tipped in favor of
criminals, drug dealers and terrorists in a rush to satisfy the marketplace.

Rep. McCollum's efforts in response to these important public safety issues
represent what I believe to be good and sound public policy decisions.
Without the type of leadership exemplified by Rep. McCollum, law
enforcement could easily find itself in a position where we are disabled in
our ability to effectively carry out our public safety mission, thus
seriously jeopardizing our ability to prevent crime, solve crime and
prosecute those who commit serious criminal acts against innocent Americans.

Louis J. Freeh, director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.