The proposed wiretap bill would make it more difficult for prosecutors to obtain court permission to monitor the telephone numbers dialed by a suspect. The bill would require the same standard of evidence now needed for permission to tap a telephone conversation.
Two very similar bills, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Digital Privacy Act, were spawned from citizen concerns about their privacy online. Recent revelations about Carnivore, a law enforcement tool that can monitor e-mail messages, raised congressional interest in privacy legislation.
The bills also extend existing law to cover conversations held on the Internet and other electronic means and make it tougher for authorities to monitor cell phones or use them to find suspects.
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