As you consider the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, The Independent Institute wants to draw your attention to the article, “Conning Congress: Privacy and the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act [hereafter CALEA]” by economist Charlotte Twight in the fall 2001 issue of THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW: A Journal of Political Economy.

In it, Dr. Twight identifies several instances where then-FBI director Louis Freeh misled Congress as it debated CALEA. Specifically, Freeh’s misrepresentations fell into three areas:

• false claims that CALEA merely maintained the status quo and conferred no new authority on law enforcement officials (Twight 2001, pp. 191-92),
• false claims that CALEA would not facilitate access to location tracking information (Twight 2001, pp. 193-96), and
• false claims that CALEA would “improve communications privacy” (Twight 2001, pp. 196-97).

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