IRS Cups It's Ear to Cordless Phones
by Eric J Werme
IRS CUPS ITS EAR TO CORDLESS PHONES (USA Today, 7/30?)
If you're thinking about declaring a few imaginary dependents this year, don't mention it on your cordless phone.
The Internal Revenue Service may be listening.
Under new guidelines for its criminal investigators, the IRA can use
radio scanners to eavesdrop on suspected tax dodgers while they chat
on their cordless phones.
No warrant is necessary.
The IRS policy, issued as an update to a handbook for investigators,
comes in the wake of a recent Supreme Court action.
The high court declined in January to review a federal appeals court
ruling that conversations on cordless telephones are not subject to
federal privacy laws.
"The IRS thinks that since there are no legal or constitutional
protections against listening in to cordless telephone conversations,
its agents aren't bound by any higher principles," says Janlori
Goldman of the American Civil Liberties Union's Privacy Project.
As of this year, one in four homes has a cordless phone; more than 9
million were sold last year alone.
The ACLU has asked Congress to overhaul the 1986 Electronic
Communications Privacy Act, which extended federal privacy protection
to such areas as cellular telephones and electronic computer mail -
but specifically omitted the emerging technology of cordless phones.
"The current law makes no sense," says Goldman. "If your telephone
happens to have a cord, your privacy is protected by federal law. If
not, you have none."
Eric J Werme
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