Aware that police might be eavesdropping, drug dealers not only watch what they say on their cell phones. They "burn" their phones and "bust" them. They create phantom phone numbers and treat a handset the way a tourist might treat a disposable camera, discarding it after a few good shots.
As prosecutors and detectives in Baltimore increase the use of wiretaps against major drug organizations, they have discovered that their targets' phone capabilities outpace their own.
To catch up, law enforcement officials from across Maryland are proposing legislative changes that would expand and simplify the use of wiretaps.
A principal objective is to be able to quickly switch a wiretap from phone to phone, mirroring a suspect's maneuvers.
"Over the last couple of years, as we've been doing more of these wiretap investigations, we've come face to face with what the shortcomings are," said city State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy, who will hold a news conference on the issue today.
But efforts to streamline the wiretap application process, which is now closely reviewed by a judge, are sure to meet some opposition in the General Assembly from the American Civil Liberties Union, among others.
"There is reason to be concerned that the police will become Big Brother," said Maryland ACLU spokesman Dwight Sullivan. "We want police to be aggressive in fighting crime, but we also need to have the barrier between the aggressiveness and the public, and that barrier is the judge."
Wiretapping is the most intrusive and sophisticated investigative tool police have, to be used only when more conventional methods are exhausted. Maryland's wiretap laws, which require more judicial oversight and offer less flexibility than those of most other states, were last updated in 1988, back when having a pager was cool.
Since then, investigators say, technology and sophistication have shot ahead. It's not unusual for drug organizations to buy cell phones in bulk, making sure not to use one line for more than a few days. In one Baltimore case, a suspect owned about 50 cell phones.
Warrant for each phone
Current law is geared more toward the phone than the suspect, requiring investigators to reapply for a new warrant each time they want to listen to a new line - a process that means writing about 100 pages of affidavits explaining to a judge why the wiretap is crucial to a case.
