re clipper considered harmful in article r us oeh agate berkeley edu shirriff sprite berkeley edu ken shirriff writes imagine archiving all pay phone conversations so if someone turns out to be a drug dealer you can listen to all their past drug deals and archive calls to from suspected mafia members potential terrorists radicals etc imagine the convenience for the police of being able to get a warrant now and listening to all the calls the world trade center bombers made in the past year since archiving would be such a powerful tool and so easy to do why wouldn t it happen apart from the storage and search requirements because the evidence is inadmissible wiretaps require a warrant and as soon as one such case comes to light all previous cases are likely to be discovered and thrown out there was an article in the ny times a few months ago about how many convictions in the state might be invalidated because they relied on pen registers and the court of appeals ruled that pen registers were equivalent to wiretaps and hence required warrants under new york law
