Vviewpoints
DOI: 10.1145/1562164.1562175
Law and technology
Keeping track of
telecommunications surveillance
The creation of a statistical index of U.S. telecommunications surveillance activities and their results
will benefit both civil liberties and law enforcement.

TELECoMMUniCations sUrVEiL- LanCE raisEs complex policy and political issues. It is also a matter of great concern for the general public. Surprisingly enough, however, the phenomenon of telecommunications surveillance is poorly measured in the U.S. at present. As a result, any attempt at rational inquiry about telecommunications surveillance is hampered by the haphazard and incomplete information the U.S. government collects about its own behavior and activities.

Neither the U.S. government nor outside experts know basic facts about the level of surveillance practices. As a consequence, U.S. citizens have limited ability to decide if there is too much or too little telecommunications surveillance. It is also impossible to determine if telecommunications surveillance is increasing or decreasing, or if law enforcement is using its surveillance capacities most effectively. 4

Ideally, it would be possible to reach conclusions about these issues by examining data about U.S. govern-

ment surveillance practices and their results. As a general model, federal and state crime statistics are publicly available and criminologists pore over these databases to spot trends and determine police activities that are effective. No such database is available about the full range of telecommunications surveillance.

congress should
create one annual
report card
that measures
and publicizes
government’s
performance of
telecommunications
surveillance.

The Telecommunications Surveillance index

Congress should create one annual report card that measures and publicizes government’s performance of telecommunications surveillance. This index will replace the bits and pieces of scattered reports that different governmental entities sometimes release. Such an index will allow year-by-year comparisons of changes in the levels of government telecommunications surveillance and permit meaningful judgments about the extent of privacy invasions and the effectiveness of the activity. In this column, I describe the gap left by the reporting provisions in current statutes, which create only an incomplete and discontinuous picture of the governmental activity. The creation of an annual telecommunications surveillance index is an urgent matter, and I will conclude by discussing four issues related to this necessary task.

To understand the shortcomings of the statutes that permit U.S. telecommunications surveillance, one needs a