The Return Of 1984

.Having the FBI monitor phone calls is a scary prospect.

It's been a decade sine 1989 came and went, leaving cynics scoffing over the apparent inaccuracy of George Orwell's nightmarish vision of society's future.

Indeed, just five years after the fateful date passed, the Berlin wall was down and the Soviet Union had collapsed. Gone were the Staasi, the KGB and the secret police forces of every other fallen communist regime, which in their heyday terrorized ordinary civilians with the knowledge that their words and actions were being watched. Across the East Bloc and around the world, people breathed easier at the spread of freedom and the demise of Big Brother.

Perhaps too soon. Now, in our own nation, Orwellian forces in the government are craftily seeking to extend their reach into every American home. Playing on Americans' fears of terrorism in the wake of the World Trade Center bombing, the Clinton administration is seeking to win Congressional and private sector support for the implementation of a massive new communications surveillance system.

Last week, FBI director Louis J. Freeh met privately with leading members of Congress to convince them to vote in favor of the proposed legislation, which would afford law enforcement agencies vastly enhanced capabilities to monitor private telephone communications without actually tapping into specific lines.

The new technology would allow access to both voice and data transmissions, as well as to communications transmitted over interactive cable technologies now being developed. In typical political doublespeak, the bill is called the Digital Telephone and Communications Privacy Improvement Act.

If passed, however, the act would do little to improve the privacy of ordinary citizens. Instead, it would make it easier for the government to keep track of our activities. Rather than secure a court order to tap phone lines--as they now must--law enforcement agents using the new technology could have instant access to detailed information on the so-called "transactional" nature of phone calls. As Jerry Berman, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The New York Times recently, "It will be possible to develop a life-size portrait about you as a person."

Freeh denies that that's what the government is after, claiming he merely desires better access to court-approved eavesdropping. "My real objective is to get access to the content of telephone calls," he says. And since rapidly advancing communications technologies make it harder to monitor phone conversations, the new approach is necessary, Freeh says.

Still, even if Freeh is telling the truth--and assuming that the proposed surveillance freedoms would not be abused by law enforcement officials down the line--the problems of the so-called privacy improvement act do not end there. It's not just the government we have to worry about.

The new technology would also open up a wide array of dangerous opportunities for computer hackers and phone company employees. Freeh plays down that possibility, though he acknowledges that it exists. In any case, he argues, the benefits of the plan, in terms of enhanced law enforcement, outweigh the disadvantages of reduced privacy. Coming from the director of the FBI, that's not an unexpected sentiment.

Still, a decade after 1984, it's frightening to think of so dramatically enhancing the government's ability to monitor its citizens' activities. A decade from now, might we be wondering, each time we pick up the phone, who's listening?

Stephen E. Frank's column appears on alternate Thursdays.