Interception of communication in the jurisdictions of the United States of America, European Court of Human Rights and Turkey

Interception of communication tool has been desired to be utilised by the law enforcement units in the most effective and broad manner. As a natural outcome of this desire, dramatic increases have been seen in the implementation phase. So as to combat these brand new threats, states have been obliged to update their related legislation pieces in order to more efficently use this tool. Turkish legislator, being aware of this obligation, has undertaken a new legislative study. In the course of these legislative steps, `European Convention for the Protection of Human Rigths and Fundamental Freedoms? and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have been taken into consideration. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the updated documents and information as to the legislation pieces and implementation of the United States of America (USA), which closly follows technological develepments, have been benefited.Our study, which aims to examine the interception of communication notion through an international standpoint, has scrutinized the USA, ECHR and Turkish jurisdictions respectively. The study consists of three chapters. The first chapter, sheding light on the USA legislation and implementation with regard to interception of communication, examines the judicial and preventive interception in the context of the USA attitude which changed particularly after the 9/11 era. In the second chapter, the jurisdiction of ECHR has been examined. In the last chapter, both judicial and preventive interception of communication notions in Turkish law are focused on.The legislation pieces with regard to interception of communication consists mainly of the `Wiretap and Electronic Surveillence Act?, which covers the provisions as to the content of the communication, along with the Pen/Trap Statute and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Act. Even though the USA implementation as to the interception of communication system is based upon a broad legislation piece, it has been observed that some of the authorities do not take their roots from the related legislation or some powers of the law enforcement agengies have been unduly broadened.The interception of communication system of Turkey, which used to apply deductive reasoning or interpretation tools at the time of the ancient Criminal Procedure Law numbered 1412, has to an important extent been aligned with the standards of the ECHR. The developments in the field of `judicial interception? have reached to a rather satisfactory level, however, the practice with respect to the `preventive interception of communication? lacks some important elements and accomodates some lacunas. The loopholes and the ambiguities in the legislation regarding the interception of communication along with the deficiencies concerning the control mechanism over the interception transactions may give rise to violations in case they are broughts before the ECHR.