Prosecutors Are Shaping Privacy Law

If Congress won’t write laws for this century’s technology, courts must craft rules that ensure a fair and orderly review of new investigative methods. For example, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (which also confronts the tension between effective investigations and privacy) has a system for bringing in independent lawyers called “amici curiae” to argue novel or significant legal issues that occasionally arise when the government asks for technology-based surveillance orders. Giving these independent lawyers the information they need to argue about the legality of novel law enforcement requests, as well as the right to appeal, would at least provide for a more balanced assessment of new surveillance technologies and a quicker way for questions about them to be decided on a national basis.

Source: www.nytimes.com