Baby-Food Bombing and highly selective quoting

[Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>]

On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, some anonymous FUDder sent us this:

> ------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
> Date:          Thu, 18 Apr 1996 10:01:03 -0500
> From:          Al Thompson <alt@iquest.net>
> To:            Multiple recipients of list NEWS <NEWS@AEN.ORG>
> Subject:
>
> [Congressional Record: April 17, 1996 (Senate)]
> [Page S3454-S3478]

Specifically, page S3455. But the quote is so out of context as to be
inaccurate.

For an accurate record of Senator Biden's remarks, plus the full text of
the Baby-Food Bomb and Unabomber Wannabe documents, you want to follow the
*second* of the *two* TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT--CONFERENCE REPORT links
on:

 http://thomas.loc.gov/r104/r104s17ap6.html

I think the following is a permanent URL, but I'm sure you can't make hard
links any deeper:

 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r104:S17AP6-332:

Also note that this speech concerns an amendment to S735 that FAILED.
I.e., the language for which the esteemed [snort] Mr. Biden is arguing IS
NOT IN THE BILL AS PASSED BY THE SENATE.

>[...]
>                                                   As some people tell
> it, you would think the FBI and BATF and the local and State police
> are tapping our phones left and right, that they are riding down the
> streets in vans with electronic devices eavesdropping into our
> windows and houses--which they have the capacity to do, by the way.

Mr. Biden's next sentence, which either Mr. Thompson or the anonymous
forwarder conveniently left out, is "But that is just not the way it
works." It should come as no surprise to anyone on the cypherpunks that
such things are technically possible. But do they happen? Does even our
friend Senator Joe "You Heard It Here First" Biden approve? Mr. Biden's
speech continues, also conveniently left out by Mr. Thompson and the
anonymous forwarder:

 That necessity requirement is meant to ensure that wiretapping is not the
 normal investigative technique, like physical surveillance or the use of
 informants. These are very serious protections, Mr. President. I believe
 that interposing a court between the prosecutor and the wiretap is a
 citizens' best protection.

 But even before we get to the judge who makes his decision, there is a
 very painstaking, stringent process within the Justice Department for
 determining when to seek a court authorization for a wiretap.

 First, the agent in the field, under the supervision of his or her
 supervisor, must write an affidavit, a sworn affidavit, that they must
 sign that sets out all the particular facts relating to probable  cause,
 because even if an order is granted based on the agent, if he is lying,
 then that information is gone even if the judge issued the wiretap
 order.
[...]
 This is painstaking. It is time consuming, as well it should be, for we
 want to make sure that wiretaps are used in only the most serious cases.
 We want to make sure that they are used only as a last resort when all
 other less intrusive techniques have failed, and we want to make sure
 that the Government is not making unwarranted intrusions into our
 privacy. But we also need to make sure that law enforcement has the
 tools, if they meet all these hurdles, to catch the bad guy.
[...]
 You cannot get a wiretap, even if you do all the things I just said,
 unless you turn to the Criminal Code, and you have all these crimes
 listed in the Criminal Code. OK. You may find a crime in one section, and
 then you have to turn to another section, section 251, of the Criminal
 Code entitled, `Authorization for Interception of Wire, Oral or
 Electronic Communications.' And then you have to find there in subsection
 (c) the list of offenses for which you can get a wiretap.  Not every
 crime is entitled to have a wiretap attached to it.

So there we are. The next speech is by Orrin Hatch, who doesn't really
address any of Biden's points, but that's OK, because I don't agree with
them.

Oh yeah, and Biden read the full text of the "Attention All Unabomber
Wannabes" and "Babyfood Bombs" documents into the Congressional Record,
supposedly to underscore the point that those nasty Republicans are
endorsing such nasty nasty stuff. Sort of like Exon's little blue book.

So if you want to know how to build a baby-food bomb, simply write your
congresscritter.

-rich