Question about wiretaps?

I have repeatedly read about countless hours of audio that has been gathered on mobsters and can totally understand why the current stuff isn't released for public ears (being related to ongoing criminal cases) BUT, why can we not listen to stuff that has been gathered from the 60's,70's and, 80's? Guys that have already been convicted?
It is ok to release pictures of Willie Boy Johnson's sea of blood but, someone's voice is secretive....Don't get it!

Would love to hear:

1.Bobby Manna talk about whacking John Gotti
2.Paul Castellano's white house tapes
3.Nick Caramandi trying to squeeze $1,000,000

I am sure there are a bunch more that I wanna hear but just don't get why some wiretaps aren't ever heard.....Must one of the convicted people be dead first?

Wiretaps are considered an invasion of privacy, which is why police have to get a judge to authorize them to use wiretaps. Police have to convince the judge that this invasion of privacy is justified. To then use the tapes in court, the tapes must be ruled admissible by a judge. To release those tapes to the public would be a further invasion of privacy. A judge would have to rule that these tapes could be released to the public. Usually there would be no reason to do this and it would be hard to argue to a judge that there is legitimate reason to release tapes and further invade the privacy of those on tape.

A lot of photos can legally be released. Any photo of a person in a public space can be released because people in public have no expectation of privacy. I think this is why we typically see surveillance photos of people on streets during their walk and talks.

I think that dead people have no right to privacy. Everybody on the tape would have to be deceased. And I believe a judge would still have to rule that it be released.

don't you give up a right to privacy when you are talking about and convicted of a crime using those tapes? I mean why do you have a right to privacy about a crime if we all know already you did it and were sent to jail for it. Yet hearing their voices talk about it would be to tough on them? I could see if they were still alive and crucial info like family members names or info on them was on the tapes and people could harm them if they were to hear what was said. but otherwise wtf.

I'm not a lawyer... But police use wiretaps to try and build a case when people are involved in illegal activity. To release those tapes to the public really has nothing to do with their real purpose - which is to prove illegal activity and jail criminals. Once somebody is imprisoned they don't lose their right to privacy. But hey...I'd like to hear them too.

Some Joe Pistone tapes are available. I wonder how they got made available to the public.

Not good having your house bugged man, when I lived with my dad, his house was bugged.. used to say good morning to the police and goodnight when he went to bed haha. Looked like he was talking to himself

ok you can't just say that and not share the story of who what where and why man

I mean c'mon lets be honest here. Your dad's story sounds a litte more interesting than just that info

he was into drugs and stuff, that's as far as I know

WAS into drugs and WAS convicted for something related to drugs.

A lot of wiretaps are technically illegal--not sanctioned by a court order. Law enforcement use them to gather investigative information. The FBI was notorious for using nonsanctioned wiretaps to intimidate witnesses and defendants.

Some of Castellano's wiretapped conversations were cited in "Boss of Bosses," but Castellano was long dead by the time the book was published. Some of Gotti's wiretapped conversations were made public because they were played at his last trial, and were part of the record.

Thanks for the replies...... I just know that my dad's tax dollars paid for those agents to sneak in to bug the places, and I never got to the chance to play as racoon Mario in Super Mario Bros. 3 because he said, taxes were killing him.......All will be forgiven if I just had an easy website to navigate, with any sound clip that I want to hear.....Is that too much to ask for in 2014?

I noticed you are Australian and mentioned something about your dad being involved with drugs a long time ago. Are you familiar with David McMillan? He has been away from Australia for a long time but I was wondering if he is a big name in Australia. If you don't mind me asking.

My note above is directed to TheAustralian.

Wasn't Mcmillan like a mule or some shit? Nah dad never hung around with that dude (that I know of) he used to hang around the knockarounds blokes (bikies) rarely saw him without his patch on haha

How does this work with all the mob documentaries? Aren't the wiretaps they play considered released to public? I remember hearing at least Castellano, Gotti, Gravano, Jimmy Fratianno, Tommy Agro, Tony Ducks, the Neil Delacross - Angelo - Gotti conversation and I'm sure a bunch of others. How does a documentarist get a permission to play these tapes?

Wiretaps,whether Federal or State, fall under Title III regulations. Generally speaking,if the tapes are part of a court record,they are public documents and can be released.

Having said that,there are still circumstances under which recordings can be withheld from public release. The problem is that so far,when petitions were made to courts for release of certain tapes,the highest level at which decisions were made was at the US District Court,and Circuit Appeals Court level.

Since the US Supreme Court has never consented to hear an Appellate case concerning public "right to know" on such tapes,what you have is the last ruling by whichever Circuit
Court issued it being the accepted standard.

So in a nutshell,the public release of tapes can vary from Circuit to Circuit, each one being independent of the other. Until such time as the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case and decide on the Constitutionality of such tape releases,there will be no standard procedure on a national basis.

Right now,the only option is to file an FOIA request, and if you are turned down, take your chances on whichever jurisdiction will hear the the Appeal.

TheAustralian - Yes he was basically a small time guy who had mules hauling around a few kilos at a time for him. He refers to himself as a class D drug dealer or something like that, so even he doesn't claim to be a big shot. I wasn't really asking if your father knew him, I was just wondering if he is well known in Australia because he had such an interesting life. He did like 10 years in Australia, was part of some helicopter prison break conspiracy, got life in prison in Bangkok, became the only Westerner to escape that Thai prison, got life somewhere else (I believe), then went to England where he now lives (got another few years in lock up there) but is still wanted in Australia.

On another note, I recently heard of some guys smuggling cocaine from the United States into Australia. We are used to all drugs being smuggled into the US, but never out of the US. Australia must have extremely high cocaine prices for it to be profitable to smuggle from the US to Australia?

Yeah dude, coke's about 200-250 a gram where I'm from. Not cheap at all

That's crazy - sounds like the United States in the 1970s when there was like a coke gold rush. I'm surprised Columbians don't focus on Australia. I guess it's just father than they want to deal with. Who is the biggest crime group in Australia? Biker gangs or mafia?

The bikers are the ones that make the headlines over here but most of 'em don't even ride bikes no more, they just wear the patch