Word: wiretapped
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These decisions so effectively barred wiretap evidence from federal courts that the Justice Department practically gave up even trying to get convictions where critical evidence had been obtained by wiretapping. But apart from making evidence inadmissible. Section 605 has been a flop as an anti-wiretapping law. Only in one case has anyone ever been convicted under the section, and that was not a wiretap case.* Since the FBI does a lot of tapping, the Justice Department has not even tried to enforce Section 605 against wiretappers. Courts have had little occasion to decide whom Section 605 prohibits from doing...
...Catch a Bookie. While Section 605 has sat lumpishly on the books, serving mainly to bar wiretap evidence in federal courts, wiretapping has flourished. Technology has kept up with demand. Today a good tap sets up so little interference in the line that users do not hear it. A tapper can rig up a tape recorder and leave the scene, returning only once a day to change the tape. Induction apparatus makes it possible to tap a wire without hooking into it or even touching...
...biggest wiretapping agencies in the U.S. are the FBI, which on an average day has between 150 and 200 taps working, and the New York City Police Department. A state law allows any New York cop above the rank of sergeant to apply for a court order to wiretap, even when investigating misdemeanors. Orders are easy to get. Now & then, the cops tap public phones, listen in on hundreds of conversations in the hope of picking up leads on bookies or prostitutes...
Breaching v. Bleaching. That private wiretapping goes unpunished while wiretap evidence is excluded from federal courts, no matter how serious the crime, seems grotesque. Four bills more or less designed to improve matters are under consideration by a House judiciary subcommittee. Two are noteworthy...
...Administration bill, submitted by Illinois Representative Chauncey Reed, would make admissible in federal courts wiretap evidence "heretofore or hereafter" obtained by the FBI "upon the express approval of the Attorney General" in national-security cases. That is all. The sole object of the bill is to make past and future wiretap evidence admissible...