Herb Kohl: “I rise in support of the Antitrust Investigative Improvements Act of 2005, a bill I am cosponsoring with Senators DeWine…”

“I rise in support of the Antitrust Investigative Improvements Act of 2005, a bill I am cosponsoring with Senators DeWine and Leahy. This important measure will give the antitrust criminal enforcers at the Department of Justice a vital tool to investigate, detect, and prevent antitrust conspiracies. It will allow the Justice Department, upon a showing of probable cause to a Federal judge, authority to obtain a wiretap order for a limited time period to monitor communications between those suspected of engaging in illegal antitrust conspiracies. The current Federal criminal code lists over 150 predicate offenses for which the Justice Department may obtain a wiretap during the course of a criminal investigation. These offenses include basic white collar crimes such as mail fraud, wire fraud, and bank fraud. However, under current law, if the Government is investigating a criminal antitrust conspiracy, such as a scheme to fix prices to consumers, the Government cannot obtain a wiretap of the suspected conspirators. This inability to obtain wiretaps unquestionably severely handicaps the detection and prevention of such conspiracies. Only with the consent of a member of the conspiracy who has already agreed to cooperate with the Government may the Government surreptitiously record the meetings of the conspirators. There is no logical basis to exclude criminal antitrust violations from the list of predicate offenses for a wiretap.…”