Electronic Surveillance in a Digital Age

摘要

Digital communications technology has recently outpaced the ability of the lawenforcement agencies to implement court authorized wiretaps easily and efffectively. To address this problem, the 103d Congress enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (P.L. 103-414). This Act invokes the assistance of the telecommunications industry to provide technological solutions for accessing call information and call content for law enforcement agencies when legally authorized to do so. This background paper reviews the progress of the industry and the law enforcement agencies in implementing the Act since its approval in October 1994.