Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Public Is Left in the Dark When Courts Allow Electronic Surveillance


Liptak, Adam. "The Public Is Left in the Dark When Courts Allow Electronic Surveillance." The New York Times, July 23, 2012.

From the article: "A big part of Magistrate Judge Stephen W. Smith’s job in Federal District Court in Houston is to consider law enforcement requests for cellphone and e-mail records. It requires him to apply old laws to the digital age and balance the government’s interest in solving crimes against the importance of protecting privacy. 

That is hard enough. What he has trouble understanding is why all this is kept from public view. … But most court orders allowing surveillance are so secret, he wrote in a provocative new article, that they might as well be “written in invisible ink.” The article chronicles the rise of a secret docket on a scale that has no parallels in American history." Read more

See also
Smith, Stephen W., "Gagged, Sealed & Delivered: Reforming ECPA's Secret Docket." (May 21, 2012). Harvard Law & Policy Review Vol. 6, 2012 Forthcoming.