Deck 9: Investigative Tools

Question 1

What happened to the federal Organized Crime Strike Forces?

Answer 1

These units, which existed in 14 US cities, with suboffices in 12 other cities, were located within US Attorneys Offices in areas where organized crime had been identified as a problem These Strike Forces were absorbed into US Attorney's Office in 1990 on order of US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh

Question 2

What are the federal agencies primarily involved in organized crime cases today?

Answer 2

FBI (57%), ATF( 17%), DHS (13%), and fewer by DEA and IRS See Figure 91 in the text

Question 3

How are federal organized crime cases developed and prosecuted?

Answer 3

After receiving information from an investigative agency, a US Attorney prepares a case initiation report, which is sent to the Department of Justice Criminal Division's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section When the investigation is completed, a prosecutive memorandum is written Once approval is obtained, the evidence is presented to a grand jury to obtain an indictment If the grand jury issues and indictment, the defendant pleads guilty or goes to trial

Question 4

Characterize the enforcement of state laws against organized crime.

Question 5

Why must investigation of organized crime place more emphasis on proactive approaches?

Question 6

Why is determining probable cause in organized crime cases often difficult?

Question 7

How is intelligence gathering different from assembling evidence to build criminal cases?

Question 8

What are the differences among the three types of financial analyses?

Question 9

How was Al Capone ultimately convicted?

Question 10

What does Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control Act permit?

Question 11

What has been a problem with the provisions of Title III?

Question 12

How did the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 change the authority to engage in electronic surveillance?

Question 13

How do the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provisions for wiretapping differ from Title III-and how was it changed by the USA PATRIOT Act?

Question 14

Is electronic surveillance permitted by state law enforcement agencies?

Question 15

What does the Electronic Communications Privacy Act( ECPA) accomplish?

Question 16

Are e-mail messages protected from nonconsensual interception?

Question 17

Can pagers be intercepted lawfully?

Question 18

Compare the protection granted conversations using cordless versus cellular telephones.

Question 19

What is "cloning" of cellular phones, and why is it an organized crime problem?

Question 20

How can it be said that the U.S. Supreme Court has expanded the scope of allowable eavesdropping since the passage of Title III?

Question 21

What is the difference between trap-and-trace devices and pen registers, and what is the current law regarding their usage?

Question 22

Compare the protection granted to police officers versus private citizens who eavesdrop unlawfully but who act in "good faith" that their actions were legal?

Question 23

How did the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 expand the scope of the ECPA?

Question 24

What is Carnivore?

Question 25

What is the Keystroke Logger System KLS?

Question 26

Why did the U.S. Supreme Court rule against the use of a thermal imaging device on the house
of a suspect believed to be growing marijuana indoors (Kyllo v. United States)?

Question 27

How has the number of taps changed since 1970 in the United States?

Question 28

Why are these bugs and taps permitted for extended periods?

Question 29

Why is room-bug electronic surveillance relatively uncommon?

Question 30

Why has there been a dramatic increase in electronic surveillance of pages and cell phones?

Question 31

What is a "roving tap"?

Question 32

What are the trends in the types of offenses for which electronic surveillance is used?

Question 33

What are the possible reasons for the simultaneous increase in the number of intercepted conversations by electronic surveillance, while the proportion of those conversations that are incriminating has dropped to only 19 percent of all conversations intercepted?

Question 34

Why is electronic surveillance so costly?

Question 35

What problems have been found in carrying our electronic surveillance?

Question 36

What is an informant?

Question 37

What is the "informer's privilege"?

Question 38

Why have there been so many organized crime figures in recent years that have agreed to become government informants?

Question 39

What is the downside of using informants?

Question 40

Why are there not more noncriminal informants?

Question 41

In a well-known case in Boston, a criminal-turned-informant was mishandled. How?

Question 42

Why are undercover investigations not used as often in organized crime investigations as is commonly believed?

Question 43

What has a study of undercover officers found?

Question 44

How would you assess the cost-benefit of undercover work?

Question 45

What are the three types of citizens' commissions?

Question 46

What is the utility of citizens' commissions?

Question 47

What happened to the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, and why?