After the September 11 terrorist attack congress felt that Title III came "replete with instructions describing the permissible scope of the surveillance as well as the conversations which may be seized and the efforts to be taken to minimize the seizure of innocent conversations, 18 USC 2518." (www.fas.org), which congress felt was a hindrance to law enforcement. .
Below Title III, the next tier of privacy protection covers some of those matters,.
which the Supreme Court has described as beyond the reach of the Fourth.
Amendment protection - telephone records, e-mail held in third party storage, and the.
like, 18 U.S.C. 2701-2709 (Chapter 121). Here, the law permits law enforcement access, ordinarily pursuant to a warrant or court order or under a subpoena in some cases, but in connection with any criminal investigation and without the extraordinary levels of approval or constraint that mark a Title III interception, 18 U.S.C. 2703.
Least demanding and perhaps least intrusive of all is the procedure that governs.
court orders approving the government's use of trap and trace devices and pen.
registers, a kind of secret "caller id", which identify the source and destination of.
calls made to and from a particular telephone, 18 U.S.C. 3121-3127 (Chapter 206).
The orders are available based on the government's certification, rather than a finding.
of the court, that the use of the device is likely to produce information relevant to the.
investigation of a crime, any crime, 18 U.S.C. 3123. The devices record no more than.
the identity of the participants in a telephone conversation,10 but neither the orders nor.
the results they produce need ever be revealed to the participants.
The USPA modifies the procedure at each level they are:.
• permits pen register and trap and trace orders for electronic communications.
(e.g., e-mail).
• authorizes nationwide execution of court orders for pen registers, trap and trace devices, and access to stored e-mail or communication records.
