I stand corrected. Thanks for getting back. I apologize for the remark. It was in bad form. Won't happen again.
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A Private Eye’s Legacy
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Few things in American law are as zealously protected as private conversations between individuals. While the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures has been gradually watered down, eavesdropping on conversations is an exceptional step for law enforcement, and one that requires lengthy, time-consuming applications to courts—applications which typically can only be submitted only by top prosecutors or their designated deputies. As a result, in the entire United States, in 2007, there were a total of just 2,208 nonterrorism wiretaps ordered by federal and local courts.
Pellicano reportedly charged large fees for his services, and counted some of Hollywood's leading legal talent among his clients. Yet he chose to represent himself in court when charged with 110 violations of federal law. It was a gamble that did not, in the end, pay off, as last week's conviction attests.
Pellicano did not appear to have enough sophistication to intercept cell-phone communications, putting a major crimp in his conversation-interception abilities. But federal agents had trouble piercing some of Pellicano's encrypted information. The bureau sometimes tests the technological frontier in monitoring targets—in a New York mob case, for example, in which agents sent software remotely to cell phones so they could listen in surreptitiously on the phones' users and those in their vicinity. But it's an open question how many PIs are able to manage such feats.
Is more regulation needed to prevent another case like this one? Not in Pellicano's backyard; California has some of the most stringent rules for investigators in the country, requiring anyone seeking a license to log 6,000 hours of experience and successfully complete a written test. Most other states have some form of licensing requirements and background checks as well. But perhaps in the wake of the Pellicano verdict, police departments, state agencies and telecommunications companies will keep a tighter rein on illegitimate requests and do a better job of policing in-house leakers. The best way to prevent another investigator who is tempted to cross the line into unethical territory is to stanch the demand for illegally derived information—and throw the book at clients who seek it.
O'Donnell is a lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
© 2008
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