WASHINGTON-The Clinton administration and Congress are expected to clash on anti-terrorism legislation when lawmakers return to Washington next week, with renewed debate anticipated on expanded wiretap and digital telephony wiretap funding.
Before recessing for the month, the House passed an antiterrorism bill that excluded roving wiretap authority and other key provisions sought by President Clinton.
While the sound and fury over antiterrorism legislation has subsided in the weeks since the deadly Olympic Park pipe bomb blast in Atlanta and the mysterious TWA Flight 800 explosion, the White House appears to want to make it an issue in this November’s presidential election.
The subject is broached in the Democratic Party national platform. Clinton, in a recent radio address, slammed the GOP-led Congress for stripping elements from the House antiterrorism bill “that law enforcement needs to help them find out, track down and shut down terrorists.”
Conservative Republicans, led by Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, blocked efforts to make it easier for law enforcement to conduct roving, or multipoint, wiretaps. The Federal Bureau of Investigation claims such authority would help agents track suspects, who move from one location to another and use multiple cellular telephones.
“The legislation is a measured and effective step in the fight against terrorism,” said Barr. “At the same time, federal power is not unnecessarily expanded, nor are civil liberties threatened.”
Barr has also thwarted attempts to fund the digital telephony bill-known officially as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act-a measure signed by Clinton in 1994 to enable law enforcement to conduct electronic surveillance on advanced wireless and wireline telecommunications systems.
CALEA was authorized for $500 million during fiscal years 1995 through 1998, but has not received any funds to date. Without such monies, wireless and wireline carriers are not obligated to comply with requirements to expand wiretap capacity on their networks as needed by the FBI. Clinton asked for $100 million in fiscal 1997 for CALEA.
The wireless telecommunications industry is caught in the middle. Carriers signed onto CALEA after being promised the government would foot the bill for technical upgrades to networks. But the industry has been frustrated with the FBI’s implementation of the bill.
Nevertheless, House and Senate appropriators are attempting to get around the funding stalemate by setting up a fund into which federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies can contribute unspent year-end funds to CALEA. But there are strict accounting and oversight provisions the FBI would have to comply with before it could receive any money.
Moreover, there is support in both the House and Senate for legislation that includes expanded wiretap authority and other elements left out of the House antiterrorism bill.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, with backing from Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Charles Canady (R-Fla.), introduced legislation the same day the House passed its antiterrorism bill which incorporates expanded wiretaps. Hyde is a strong supporter of CALEA. He expressed fear that guidelines backed by Barr and others to oversee the CALEA fund are overly burdensome and might “interfere with the prompt implementation of the digital telephony statute.”
