Justice Dept.‘s warrantless eavesdropping rejected:
The U.S. Department of Justice asserts it doesn’t need to obtain a wiretap court order to listen to which touch tones are pressed when people are on the phone.… At issue in this case is not whether the FBI can legally eavesdrop on a telephone conversation between two Americans. It can — if it obtains a wiretap order from a judge.… In last week’s opinion, Azrack said both federal law and the Fourth Amendment require her to reject prosecutors’ request: “Despite the investigative benefit which would come from access to all PCTDD, the government cannot bootstrap the content of communications, protected by the Fourth Amendment, into the grasp of a device authorized only to collect call-identifying information. Until the government can separate PCTDD that do not contain content from those that do, pen register authorization is insufficient for the government to obtain any PCTDD.”
Translation: Get a proper wiretap order.
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