Dramatic Expansion of Sneak-and-Peek Warrants Since 2000
by TChris
One of the more obnoxious devices enshrined in the Patriot Act is its expansion of authority to conduct "sneak-and-peek" searches. A law enforcement agent conducting a typical "sneak-and-peek" enters a dwelling surreptitiously, snoops around, and leaves without ever notifying the resident that a search has occurred. The Justice Department wants you to believe that it rarely uses the powers conveyed by the Patriot Act, including sneak-and-peeks, but that just isn't true.
Disclosure of a 75 percent increase in secret wiretaps and ”sneak and peek” searches since 2000 is likely to provide ammunition for civil liberties groups determined to modify the USA Patriot Act when Congress begins two months of debate on the law Tuesday.
Last week, the administration reported to Congress that in 2004 the government requested and won approval for a record total of 1,754 special warrants for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies.
The administration would like you believe that the Patriot Act is a tool wielded only against terrorists. Also untrue.
[T]he FBI also uses the warrants in ”plain vanilla” criminal investigations that have nothing to do with terrorism. ... The warrants have been used to break into homes, offices, hotel rooms and cars, install hidden cameras, search luggage, eavesdrop on telephone conversations, intercept emails, and gain access to safe deposit boxes.
Even Congress doesn't know the whole truth, because the FBI won't reveal the full extent of its use of sneak-and-peek warrants.
The FBI does not release details of its ”sneak and peek” activities, so little is known about them outside the agency. Even the relevant committees of Congress are not informed except in the annual reports the FBI is required to submit. And members of Congress have complained that the information they receive is too general.
| < Death Penalty Facts | Meet Vernon - the First Death Row Blogger > |
