Speaker Warns of Wiretapping

Americans, like the citizens of George Orwell's fictional world of 1984, are in danger of becoming the victims of unmonitored invasions of privacy, said Morton Bromfield. President and founder of the Wellesley Hills-based American Privacy foundation, Bromfield presented his vision of 1988-cum-1984 in a speech to 30 listeners yesterday in Sanders Theatre.

Bromfield, who calls his 13-year-old organization "the only organization anywhere working toward telecommunication privacy," said that wiretapping is a widespread practice in the United States today, but is not commonly recognized as such.

Bromfield said that although the issue of computer privacy receives publicity, the same priority is not given to invasions of telephone security. He added that although public knowledge about computer privacy invasion is focused on teenagers, it is equally important to be aware of adult hackers.

"Obviously if the little kids can do it for pleasure and fun, why can't the pros do it for power and profit," Bromfield said.

Bromfield cited the November phone tapping of Law School Professor Lawrence Tribe '62 as an example of the continuing incidence of privacy invasion in America today.

Bromfield said that officials of federal institutions and telephone companies are at fault for their failure to enforce existing legislation that prohibits invasion of telephone privacy.

He said the major issue in the invasion of telecommunication privacy is that people are unaware that their security is at risk, and that official institutions deny the severity of the problem.

"I wish the phone company were being paid to ignore you. The most frightening thing is that they are not," he said.