- The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department have renewed
their efforts to wiretap voice conversations carried across the Internet.
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- The agencies have asked the Federal Communications Commission
to order companies offering voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service
to rewire their networks to guarantee police the ability to eavesdrop on
subscribers' conversations.
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- Without such mandatory rules, the two agencies predicted
in a letter to the FCC last month that "criminals, terrorists, and
spies (could) use VoIP services to avoid lawfully authorized surveillance."
The letter also was signed by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
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- This is not the first time the Bush administration has
expressed concern about terrorists and other lawbreakers using VoIP to
avoid wiretaps. As previously reported by CNET News.com, a proposal presented
quietly to the FCC in July sought guaranteed surveillance access to broadband
providers. But the latest submission, which follows a recent FCC forum
on Internet telephony, is more detailed than before and specifically targets
VoIP providers as a regulatory focus.
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- In general, VoIP providers have pledged to work with
police, and some, like Level 3 Communications, do not oppose the regulations
the FBI is seeking. Others, like a coalition of 12 smaller VoIP providers
including BullDog Teleworks and PingTone Communications, have told the
FCC that "there are various industry initatives under way and the
commission should allow those initiatives time to succeed before preemptively
regulating."
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- Federal and local police rely heavily on wiretaps. In
2002, the most recent year for which information is available, police intercepted
nearly 2.2-million conversations with court approval, according to the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Wiretaps for that year cost taxpayers
$69.5-million, and approximately 80 per cent were related to drug investigations.
Those statistics do not include approximately the same number of additional
wiretaps authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
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- When weighing the FBI's request, the FCC will have to
decide whether a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act (CALEA) applies to VoIP providers. The law is ambiguous.
It clearly requires "telecommunications carriers" to provide
ready wiretapping access while explicitly exempting "information services."
If the FCC decides CALEA does not apply, the debate would shift to Congress,
which could decide to amend the law.
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- When Internet links are used to carry voice calls that
begin and end in the traditional, circuit-switched network - a move that
Verizon Communications announced Wednesday - that would easily fall within
CALEA's existing definitions. But Internet-to-Internet voice links like
those offered by VoIP companies Vonage and Skype are closer to information
services and fall into a regulatory gray area. The status of voice conversations
carried through instant-messaging programs is even more unclear, as is
the FCC's ability to compel overseas VoIP providers to comply with U.S.
rules.
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- "The FCC should ignore pleas about national security
and sophisticated criminals because sophisticated parties will use noncompliant
VoIP, available open source and offshore," said Jim Harper of Privacilla.org,
a privacy advocacy Web site. "CALEA for VoIP will only be good for
busting small-time bookies, small-time potheads and other nincompoops."
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- One unusual section of the FBI letter is that it claims
the bureau is seeking to protect Americans' privacy rights: "Mandatory
CALEA compliance by VoIP providers would better protect the privacy of
VoIP users than a voluntary approach. CALEA protects the privacy of surveillance
suspects by requiring carriers to provision the surveillance in a confidential
manner." Otherwise, the FBI argues, a VoIP company might turn over
a "full pipe" to police that would include conversations of more
people than necessary.
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- At least one FCC commissioner has expressed strong support
for sweeping VoIP into CALEA's requirements, which currently apply only
to telephone companies.
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- "We must understand the concerns raised by DOJ and
FBI that classifying Vonage's VoIP as an information service severely undercuts
CALEA," Jonathan Adelstein said last month. "VoIP jeopardizes
the ability of federal, state and local governments to protect public safety
and national security against domestic and foreign threats. Public safety
is not negotiable."
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