The state’s 45-year-old wiretapping law needs to be updated to give police and prosecutors more muscle to clamp down on gun violence, a group of legislators, law enforcement officials, and mayors said Monday.
The group said they were pushing for “critical and long overdue” changes in a bill filed Monday in the Legislature. The bill would expand the scope of electronic surveillance, which is currently limited to organized crime cases, to cases involving drugs and guns, child pornography, human trafficking, and money laundering.
Comments
I am all for cutting down on gun violence and getting dangerous people off the streets. But how come everytime there is a tragedy such as The Newtown one, law enforcement people start trying to erode our rights and turn the state and the country into even more of a police state than we already are. How much of our privacy and freedoms are we going to give up? This bill would "expand the scope of eletronic surveillance", this is the part that is disturbing. How much of an "expansion" is really neccessary? Given that the government (FBI, Homeland Security, etc) already have the power to eavesdrop on our wireless communications? This is a slippery slope.
It would be nice if the story provided some information on the actual changes sought, and perhaps a link to the bill so we could read it ourselves.
It is never a good idea to allow law enforcement to wiretap without getting a court order. It is virtually always abused. If Coakley doesn't understand that, it is time for a new Attorney General.