Alan Dershowitz: There is an enormous difference between listening to the content of people’s phone calls and creating a database of telephone numbers used to make and receive calls and their duration. Creating the meta-database is a fairly debatable issue and should be the subject of hearings at which non-classified information can be discussed. I, for one, would like to hear the arguments for and against such a database before deciding whether on balance the benefits of the intrusion outweigh their obvious costs. For decades, the Supreme Court has permitted what are called mail watches, under which postal authorities have the power to maintain data based on the outsides of envelopes—the address to and from which the letter is sent. We no longer send letters. Now we use quicker and more efficient forms of communication. As technology changes, so must the law.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 21:20:35 +0000
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