The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expanding the reach of U.S.
wiretapping laws to wireline broadband providers and Internet telephone
companies.
In an order issued Friday, the FCC gave the providers 18 months to comply
with the network wiretap accessibility rules of the Communications
Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).
Previously, CALEA applied only to traditional telecommunications carriers,
such as incumbent Bells and wireless firms. The advent of Voice over IP
of Justice (DoJ) and the FBI.
The DoJ petitioned the FCC to extend CALEA to new
advanced services to expand CALEA to airline broadband.
“Although I believe that new technologies and services should operate free
of economic regulation, I also believe law enforcement agencies must have
the ability to conduct lawful electronic surveillance over these new
technologies,” FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin said.
The FCC ruling was hardly surprising. Since launching an inquiry into VoIP
services more than a year ago, the agency promised a light regulatory touch
but said it was likely providers would have to comply in some fashion with
CALEA.
“There is still more work ahead of us,” Martin said. “In the next few
months, we intend to issue a subsequent order that will address other
important issues under CALEA, such as cost recovery, standards and
enforcement.”
Congress passed CALEA almost 15 years ago with no anticipation of advanced
services, such as VoIP. The law specifically applies to telephone networks
and exempts what the FCC classifies as “information services,” such as cable-
modem broadband.
Friday’s FCC ruling re-interprets CALEA to include wireline broadband and
VoIP.
“Expanding CALEA to the Internet is contrary to the statute and is a
fundamentally flawed public policy,” Kurt Opsahl, an attorney for the
privacy advocacy organization Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a
statement.
According to Opsahl, the FCC’s action will force VoIP providers to build
backdoors into their systems that hobble “technical innovation by forcing
companies involved in broadband to redesign their products to meet
government standards.”
FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said further congressional action to
clarify the FCC’s decision is necessary. In her official comments on the
vote, Abernathy predicted “some might not read the statute to permit the
extension of CALEA” and litigation was as “inevitable as death and taxes.”
