Law Enforcement

Abstract

If the government can’t obtain communications, it can’t decrypt them.Thus, to maintain an effective surveillance capability, the government must be able to intercept the messages sent across telephone and computer networks. This is increasingly difficult as advances in telecommunications technology have begun to outrun law enforcement’s ability to intercept communications. This chapter presents the latest proposed solution to this problem: legislation which requires telecommunications carriers to provide real-time remote access to the contents of communications data sought pursuant to a judicial warrant and to call setup and other transactional data sought in any lawful investigation.