of course they're guilty, that's why the cops are wiretapping their phone calls

The Raynham Call (Massachusetts USA)
Sunday 13 September 2009

Where’s the con side to wiretapping?

To the Editor:

"Wiretapping key to drug enforcement” (7 September) is an odd sort of story.

Twenty paragraphs about police wiretaps - and not one mention of the word “warrant.”

Are readers supposed to automatically assume that Chief Pacheco and Bristol County DA Sutter scrupulously present evidence of criminal activity to judges who issue warrants for police wiretaps?

The story quoted and depended entirely on law-enforcement sources.

Is there no one in the commonwealth other than police and DAs who has professional knowledge of and expert opinions on wiretaps and warrants? No judges or magistrates willing to discuss these matters? No criminal defense lawyers? No law professors?

I was left with the troubling impression that the Chief and DA are rubber-stamping and assembly-lining the warrants the U.S. Constitution requires for such law-enforcement tools.

I read nothing about the requirements judges and magistrates are supposed to insist on before issuing a wiretap warrant.

The story would have readers believe that all wiretap warrants have been proper, lawful, soundly grounded in oaths, evidence and reasonable suspicion, and that no wiretap warrants have been successfully challenged and declared unlawful or void in criminal and appeals court.

This wasn’t a thorough and dimensioned story at all. There are journalistic holes you could drive a truck through - important questions never asked, important sources never interviewed.

I love high-tech, proactive crime-fighting tools as well as the next guy.

I also love the U.S. Constitution and its protections for American citizens, and would like to see its role represented in your coverage of crime-fighting, too.

Robert Merkin

Northampton MA

==========================

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n848/a01.html
Newshawk: Free Marc Emery: http://tinyurl.com/pun3xz
Pubdate: Mon, 07 Sep 2009
Source: Raynham Call (MA)
Copyright: 2009 GateHouse Media, Inc.
Contact: fmulliga@cnc.com
Website: http://www.wickedlocal.com/raynham

WIRETAPPING KEY TO DRUG ENFORCEMENT

by Tim Faulkner

Raynham Police Chief Louis Pacheco has long been an advocate of using technology to combat crime. His office at the Orchard Street police station is multimedia command center, lined with large flat-screen video monitors and computer terminals showing schools playgrounds and Raynham's busy commercial roadway.

It's an approach to law enforcement that is getting a lot of attention.

Recently he attended a press conference in New Bedford to lend his support for the use of electronic surveillance during investigations of big-time drug dealers.

The event highlighted the pivotal role a wiretap played in a major New Bedford drug bust that netted 200 grams of cocaine, $50,000 cash, several vehicles, homes, 24 weapons and two dozen drug-related suspects, including three high-level drug dealers from the Fall River and New Bedford area.

Code-named Operation Lightning, the investigation was led by Bristol County District Attorney Samuel Sutter and included Lakeville and Dartmouth police as well as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations in Boston.

The bust was the direct result of a crime-fighting tool that Pacheco and Sutter agree is crucial to infiltrating drug networks that rely on sophisticated technology like smart phones and other high-tech equipment.

The practice of using wiretaps, however, fell out favor during the 16-year tenure of former Bristol County DA Paul Walsh.

"It was a major issue during ( Sutter's ) 2006 campaign," said Sutter's spokesman Gregg Miliote. "He sounded the alarm that this is the proactive way to go after drug offenders."

And it was a tool cops like Pacheco wanted to have back in their hands. "As a result ( Sam Sutter ) has had some very successful cases," Pacheco said.

The Raynham police chief, Miliote said, is known across the state, and even internationally, for his expertise in combining technology with police work.

To combat 21st century criminals, Pacheco said electronics should be used like they were in the 1970s to break up organized crime syndicates.

"I believe the wiretap is going to become very important because it's the central nervous system of any type of drug network investigation," he said.

Drug dealing operations follow a cycle of distribution, organized networks, money and violence, Pacheco said.

"The only way to get into the loop is with computer and interception," he said. "Going forward it's going to be imperative that law enforcement use digital tools," he said.

Miliote said the last week's investigation got its big break when a court-approved wiretap picked up a conversation that lead police to observe a transaction between a major drug supplier and a dealer parked on a darkened road in Dartmouth.

It was Sutter's second biggest drug sting.

In 2007, he launched an eight-month wiretap investigation that resulted in 25 arrests in New Bedford, Dartmouth and Fairhaven. Authorities raided five residences and seized large amounts of cocaine and marijuana.

The use of electronic surveillance allows law enforcement to stop crime as it happens, rather than solve them later, Miliote said. Sutter runs "a crime fighting office," he said that does not sit back and wait for crime to happen. "We'll use any practical measure to go after the worst criminals in Bristol County."

Earlier this month, Sutter stood beside state Attorney General Martha Coakley during a press conference to unveil her bill to expand electronic surveillance and to toughen laws and sentences to combat organized crime, street gangs and other illegal operations.

"The state needs to have the same ability as the federal government to crack down on large scale criminal enterprises," Miliote said.

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