Law Enforcement: The Legal Basis for the Wiretap

Going after the Bootleggers.

For most of the 1920s a syndicate of bootleggers based in Seattle, Washington, operated with relative impunity throughout the Pacific Northwest and routinely smuggled major consignments of liquor into the United States from British Columbia. Such hauls were transported by oceangoing ships and deposited on remote beaches along the Puget Sound. Truck convoys carried this liquor inland to Seattle, where it was stored in various cellars within the city limits. These bootleggers reputedly sold two hundred cases of liquor per day.

Gathering Evidence through Wiretaps.

Federal officials knew that the headquarters of this criminal organization was in the Seattle offices of a merchant marine company. Yet over the years this ring had established firm ties with local law enforcement authorities, who repeatedly warned them about upcoming raids. To collect hard evidence against this syndicate, the...

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