Clark County fourth in nation in legal use of wiretaps

Cathy Scott

Wednesday, Jan. 15, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Clark County ranks No. 4 in the nation in the number of wiretaps done by court order, according to a report released by the FBI.

The numbers were released Tuesday by the FBI for all federal, state and local law enforcement along with an assessment of future wiretap needs, based on past use.

Congress mandates that all the telephone companies set aside money so that when wiretaps are needed, the money is already there to pay for them.

Tapping phones, first authorized by Congress in 1968, has become a crucial tool in bring down many of the country's most notorious criminals, said Bobby Siller, special agent in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas office.

A random day in 1996 was picked by the FBI to track the number of wiretaps in place nationwide. The top four counties in the nation were: Los Angeles with 496; Dade County in Florida with 452; Maricopa in Arizona with 398; and Clark County with 335.

The high number of wiretaps in Clark County is "because of organized inter-agency investigations using progressive investigative techniques coupled with the population explosion in the area," said Special Agent Debbie Calhoun.

The FBI announced the amount of telephone system capacity the nation's law enforcement agencies may need for court-approved electronic surveillance "to protect the public from terrorism, violence, drugs and other grave offenses," Siller said.

"There should be no civil liberties concerns over these estimates ... (because) the act does not give law enforcement any new powers to conduct electronic surveillance," Siller said.

FBI Director James Kallstrom said the need for eavesdropping by federal authorities would not increase substantially.

Kallstrom, who used court-ordered wiretaps to nab Gambino mob boss John Gotti, did say that unless phone companies abide by the mandate in a law passed by Congress, "the criminal is going to have a huge leg up on law enforcement."

He said the bureau needs the capability to intercept fewer than 60,000 lines across the country at any given time. There are roughly 150 million telephone lines in the United States.

The FBI's need for enhanced wiretap access surfaced in October 1995 in the Federal Register, which contained technical explanation of changes the bureau wanted telephone companies to make.

The changes are designed to preserve law enforcement's ability to wiretap as telephones are switched from analog, copper-wire technology to computer controlled, digital communications over fiber-optic lines.