MA legislators and law enforcement officials are calling for an expansion of the state wiretap law.
Massachusetts legislators and law enforcement officials are calling for an expansion of state wiretap law to allow police to secretly record more suspects who are targeted in murder investigations and other violent crimes.
Under terms of a bill pending at the State House, authorities would still need a warrant to wiretap suspects, but the targets would not have to be members of a bona fide organized crime outfit, such as the Mafia, according to a summary of the legislation released on Sunday by the office of state Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Defense lawyers on Sunday said the current proposal could lead to abuses of power by the government.
“Wiretaps should be reserved for highly organized criminal groups that use sophisticated techniques to elude law enforcement,” said J.W. Carney Jr., a Boston attorney representing reputed gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.
“This legislation will allow police to use wiretaps for crimes committed by a single individual,” Carney said. “They will be monitoring private conversations for weeks, and also be intruding on the privacy of the innocent person speaking to the suspect.”
Boston defense lawyer Jeffrey Denner, although stressing that he had not yet read the bill, said he is troubled by any attempt to add categories of suspects who could be subject to a wiretap.
“This is an unbelievably slippery slope, and we’ve been moving in this direction . . . probably for the last decade,” Denner said. “And that causes a lot of us in the defense bar, and should cause a lot of people in the United States of America, great concern.”
The proposal comes after two justices on the state’s highest court urged legislators in April 2011 to change state wiretap law to expand police surveillance powers for investigations.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/01/28/state-attorney-general-lawmakers-seek-changes-wiretap-law/a8T56A8YmPVfhYOHxfsb1O/story.html