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Gov. Charlie Baker, surrounded by law enforcement officers, filed a bill to update Massachusetts' wiretap statute on May 2, 2017. (Shira Schoenberg / The Republican)

Five words in the state's wiretapping law can put an investigatory tool on the shelf for police and prosecutors pursuing cases involving an array of serious crimes, including murder, human trafficking and possessing weapons of mass destruction.

The roadblock posed by those words -- "in connection with organized crime" -- would be removed under a bill proposed by Gov. Charlie Baker that would make a number of updates to the statute.

Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey joined law enforcement officers Tuesday to announce the filing of the bill, which would expand the use of electronic surveillance by investigators in Massachusetts.

It was a bipartisan show of support by the Republican governor and Democratic attorney general for modernizing a law that has not been changed since 1968.

"Many things have changed around how we communicate and how we live since then," Baker said. He called the bill a "common sense" update that will allow law enforcement to more easily investigate and prosecute serious crimes.

Gavi Wolfe, legislative council at the Massachusetts ACLU, called the proposal "a serious intrusion into people's privacy."

The bill will now be considered by the Legislature.

Under current state law, electronic surveillance can only be used when a crime is committed "in connection with organized crime." Law enforcement officials say this hinders their ability to investigate a number of offenses, including murder.

The Supreme Judicial Court, in separate cases in 2011 and 2014, threw out recordings of incriminating statements made by homicide suspects in Brockton and New Bedford because the murders had not been committed in connection with organized crime.

Chief Justice Ralph Gants, in a concurring opinion in the 2014 case, urged the Legislature to consider updating the statute, since the current law hinders investigations into violent crimes such as gang-related homicides where witnesses are reluctant to talk to the police.

"The legislative inclusion of five words, 'in connection with organized crime,' means that electronic surveillance is unavailable to investigate and prosecute the hundreds of shootings and killings committed by street gangs in Massachusetts, which are among the most difficult crimes to solve and prosecute using more traditional means of investigation," Gants wrote.

The bill proposed by Baker would allow wiretapping for a much wider range of offenses, which Baker referred to as "the most heinous and violent crimes." These include: murder or manslaughter, rape, human trafficking, drug offenses involving trafficking, manufacture or distribution, trafficking in weapons, civil rights violations causing bodily injury, intimidation of witnesses, and use or possession of explosives or chemical, radiological or biological weapons.

Baker pointed out that if, for example, someone had expressed concerns that the Tsarnaev brothers were plotting to bomb the Boston Marathon, law enforcement would not have been allowed to wiretap them under current law because they were not part of an organized crime ring.

The bill would also let the police apply for a search warrant to monitor cell phones and electronic communications, like email, rather than just land-line telephones. It would allow monitoring for 30 days rather than 15 days. It would let Massachusetts law enforcement use wiretapping to investigate a conspiracy happening outside of Massachusetts -- for example, New York residents planning to import heroin into Massachusetts.

The bill does not make any changes to the process or the standards needed to get a wiretap, which include demonstrating probable cause for a particular crime, getting approval from a judge, and showing that other techniques have been tried and failed to solve the crime.

Healey said the changes reflect the changing nature of how criminals communicate -- for example, by using cell phones or text messaging. "Updates to the statute will assist law enforcement to better investigate the most challenging crimes without compromising strong protections for civil liberties and civil rights," Healey said.

Bills have been introduced in the past to update the wiretapping law, but they never passed the Legislature.

Wolfe said the ACLU agrees there should be some changes made to update the law due to new technology, but the ACLU wants to see more done to protect individual privacy.

"What they're talking about is change to many different facets of the wiretap statute, and there's cause for concern about each one of them -- expanding the length of time that wiretaps can be in process, changing the nature of the kinds of crimes that can be subject to a wiretap... making it possible to wiretap individuals as opposed to coordinated criminal activity," Wolfe said.

Martin Healy, chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar Association, said the association has some concerns about how wide-sweeping the bill is.

"The association is concerned from a due process and civil rights perspective," Healy said. "They're asking for the inclusion of a host of new crimes that would be swept into the area where they can wiretap an individual."

Healy said state law enforcement already have the ability to investigate some of these crimes by working with federal law enforcement agencies that have wider authority for wiretapping.

"Wiretapping was created to get after organized crime," Healy said.