NCJ Number
114106
Date Published
1987
Length
9 pages
Annotation
The 1987 Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Act extends the power to use electronic surveillance to Australian State and Territory police forces in the investigation of a variety of offenses.
Abstract
The Act applies to two classes of offenses: Class 1 offenses of murder, kidnapping, and narcotics offenses and Class 2 offenses involving loss of life, risk of serious injury, drug trafficking, serious fraud, and offenses causing serious loss of revenue to the Commonwealth or State. Circumstances relating to the issuance of warrants for the two classes vary only insofar as the judge must consider the impact of interception on privacy together with the gravity of the offense in Class 2 offenses. A major problem with the Act is the lack of clear definition of murder, kidnapping, and narcotics offenses. In addition, the Act fails to provide civil remedies for breaches of safeguards against abuses. Some remedies may be available through common law. The most obvious remedy, trespass to property, will only have utility in cases involving the placement of bugs on the target's property. The possibility of breach of confidence as a tort remedy was acknowledged in a case involving an injunction to prevent a newspaper's use of illegally procured tapes of telephone conversations. A tort action of nuisance also may provide a remedy in some cases. Ironically, the possibility of a civil remedy may be precluded on evidentiary grounds, as the Act excludes the admissibility of illegally obtained interception evidence from civil proceedings.