The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Thursday became the latest member
of a growing group challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC)
order that all Voice over IP
The order would “dramatically increase” the government’s surveillance powers
on the Internet, the ACLU said in a motion filed with the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The fledgling Internet phone industry is still experimenting with a variety
of technologies . . . yet the government would force companies to engineer
wiretapping capabilities into every new product they develop,” ACLU lawyer
Gerald J. Waldron said in a statement.
At issue is the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), a
1994 law that allows the FBI to force traditional telephone companies to
build its technology in particular ways in order to make wiretapping easier.
Congress specifically exempted “information services,” such as the Internet,
from the law.
But in August, the FCC, citing national security interests, voted 5-0 to extend CALEA
to facilities-based providers of any type of broadband Internet access
service.
“Congress didn’t want to extend these trap-door requirements to the Internet
and said so clearly,” Waldron said.
The ACLU said the order threatens the future of privacy on the Internet,
comparing the FCC mandate to a law requiring all new homes be built with a
peephole for law enforcement agents to look through.
“The FCC has unilaterally granted the FBI a sweeping expansion of its
surveillance powers on the Internet, far in excess of what Congress
authorized or intended,” said Chris Calabrese, program counsel for the
ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project.
He added, “If the Justice Department or the FCC want to expand surveillance
powers, they need to go back and ask Congress to vote on it. In the
meantime, we are asking the court to rein the Commission back in.”
The FBI, for its part, says the agency will wiretap Internet connections
with or without CALEA. The only real issue, according to the FBI, is whether
there will be a standard wiretap interface or if each legally obtained
wiretap order will have to be customized.
“We have to [wiretap],” Steve Martinez, the deputy assistant director of the
FBI’s Cyber Division, told internetnews.com in an interview
last month. “There are some tech issues but none that can’t be overcome.”
The ACLU lawsuit follows similar legal action by the
Center for Democracy and Technology, Pulver.com, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation and the Competitive Telecommunications Association.
FCC Wiretap Order Raises ACLU Ire
