ustxtxb_obs_1983_06_24_50_00028-00000_000.pdf

Parisian Charm. Omelette & Champagne Breakfast. Beautiful Crepes. Afternoon Cocktails. Gallant Waiters. Delicious Quiche. Evening Romance. Continental Steaks. Mysterious Women. Famous Pastries. Cognac & Midnight Rendezvous. In short, it’s about everything a great European style restaurant is all about. he Old Cafe st 310 East 6th St. Austin, Texas Printers Stationers Mailers Typesetters High Speed Web Offset Publication Press Counseling Designing Copy Writing Editing Trade Computer Sales and Services Complete Computer Data Processing Services %FUTURA PRESS AUSTIN TEXAS FlUITIJRA 512/442-7836 1714 South Congress P.O. Box 3485 Austin, Texas 78764 prostitution and possession of small The apparent motive of the sponsors was to save Dallas taxpayers millions of dollars in new jail construction \(no required overnight stay in jail before seeficers on the street rather than in the stationhouse doing paperwork at the booking desk. Salwen issued a press release which sounded like TWAD thought the sponsors were attempting to turn Dallas into a pot-sodded Sodom. Actually the proposal allowed a police officer discretion in issuing a field citation, gave the person ten days to appear before a judge and enter a plea, and provided for punishment for failure to appear as well as the original charge. TWAD concluded that it was an attempt to decriminalize possession of marijuana and prostitution. The bill never made it to the floor in the Senate or the House. From a civil liberties viewpoint, the great failure of this Legislature was the failure to rein in the Texas Department of Public Safety in its use of the pen register. The pen register is a device which decodes the electronic impulses from a touch tone or rotary dial telephone and prints out the number that is being called. When the Legislature passed the Wiretap and Electonic Surveillence Act in 1981, no specific mention was made of pen registers, though the act covers “any information concerning the identity of the parties to the communication or the existence . . . of that communication.” When the Legislature failed to mention pen registers specifically, Col. James Adams of the DPS interpreted the act to mean that they were legalized for uncontrolled use. It is Adams’ contention that Texans waive any expectation of privacy as to what telephone number is called when they reveal that information to the equipment of the third-party telephone company. Thus the DPS has been using the pen register without following the strict requirements of the wiretap act. A pen register can be converted to wiretap with a headset and alligator clips, and there is no judicial supervision of the activity; thus, officers are in effect given a device which indicates when a phone line is in use and then placed on their honor not to listen. State Sen. Oscar Mauzy introduced a bill which would have treated the pen register as a wiretap. When it got to the Senate floor, former Lubbock County District Attorney John Montford and former Erath County District Attorney Bob Glasgow offered a DPS sponsored substitute which the Senate accepted on an 18-13 vote. It removed the pen register from the 1985 legislative “reenact or die” provision of the 1981 wiretap act. It made the pen register available not just for felony narcotics violations as are all other forms of electronic surveillance but for any criminal offense including misdemeanors so minor they carry no jail time on conviction. The Montford/Glasgow substitute placed the decision to use the devices in the hands of local officials, whereas the wiretap act confines the decision to the DPS and one of nine judges. The substitute also allowed installation of the device without probable cause to believe that a violation of the law was occurring, had occurred, or was about to occur. The eighteen senators who cast their vote for the Montford/Glasgow pen register substitute clearly cast the worst civil liberties vote of the session, and for that they deserve some special mention. They were Blake, Brooks, Brown, Farabee, Glasgow, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Jones, Kothmann, Leedom, Lyon, McFarland, Montford, Sarpalius, Sharp, Sims, and Traeger. After passing the Senate, the pen register bill died in the House Calendars Committee. Although the Montford/Glasgow substitute was amended in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, it continued to be unacceptable from a civil liberties point of view. The recently concluded legislative session was not a session of great civil liberties losses, nor were any significant gains made. That may be the best we can hope for. 28 JUNE 24, 1983