From: "Ama-gi ISPI"
Subject: IP: ISPI Clips 6.39: Fed May Give FBI Access to Your Internet Voice Calls & Email.
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 00:51:34 -0800
To:
ISPI Clips 6.39: Fed May Give FBI Access to Your Internet Voice Calls &
Email.
News & Info from the Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI)
Friday November 13, 1998
ISPI4Privacy@ama-gi.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This From: CNET news, November 12, 1998
http://www.news.com
Fed mulls wiretap access to Net
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28695,00.html
By
John Borland, jborland@cnet.com
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Federal regulators are struggling over a decision that could
give the FBI and other law enforcement officials wiretap access
to Internet voice calls, and possibly access even to the
content
of data messages such as email.
The Federal Communications Commission [ http://www.fcc.gov/ ] released a
proposal
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Notices/1998/fcc98282.txt ] last
week for implementing the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act (CALEA), a measure that requires telephone companies to
provide law enforcement with access to digital call information.
But the report left untouched the issue of whether the FBI
http://www.fbi.gov/ ] would get new powers to tap Net calls. An FCC
staffer, who asked to remain anonymous, said the question of how Net calls
will be treated remains wide open, and may be decided during another round
of public comments.
Congress passed CALEA in 1994, after law enforcement officials complained
that digital technology undermined their ability to tap telephone lines.
The bill was intended to give the FBI and other police agencies the same
access to digital communications, that they already have to traditional
phone lines.
Yet the technological landscape has changed since Congress' action. Voice
transmissions using Internet technologies have moved from hobbyists'
basements and into the corporate mainstream. Companies like Qwest are
building whole business strategies around Net-based telephony, while the
amount of data traffic on public networks has soared.
The FBI wants access to these Net calls, and the leading industry proposal
being reviewed by the FCC allows this. But civil liberties groups warn that
this access goes beyond the original law's bounds, which don't apply well
to Internet communications.
"Congress said very explicitly that the CALEA law was not intended to apply
to Internet communications," said Barry Steinhardt, president of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Over the long term this is the ability to
get packet-switched data, not just voice information."
The sticking point lies in the way that law enforcement gets its power to
tap lines, and in the way that permission fails to translate into the world
of the Internet.
Many people associate a wiretap with a listening post able to overhear the
entire content of a call. This type of tap requires a law enforcement
agency to meet a fairly high standard of evidence, to show it needs access
to a certain phone line.
But the vast majority of wiretaps fall into a category known as "tap and
trace," in which phone companies give up information about a call's origin
and destination without giving officials access to the actual call. This
type of access is much easier for law enforcement officials to obtain, as
they don't require evidence as strong as what is needed for standard
wiretaps.
The "tap-and-trace" system doesn't carry over well to Net calls, which are
broken down and transmitted in individual packets of information. Telephone
company officials say it is impossible, at today's level of technology, for
telephone carriers to hand over the header information in these
packets--which would identify the call's origin and destination--without
also handing over the actual content of the call itself.
"For us it's impossible to do just the one thing," said Grant Seiffert,
vice president of governmental relations for the Telecommunications
Industry Association
[ http://www.tiaonline.org/ ]. "Once you've opened the can of worms, the
whole can stays open."
The EFF, along with the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Electronic Privacy
Information Center(EPIC), have lobbied the FCC hard to keep Net calls out
of the wiretapping law for this reason.
"The FBI is saying, 'Trust us, give us the whole message and we'll strip
out the call content,'" Steinhardt said. "We just don't trust them."
For its part, the FBI says it needs access to the Net calls, or criminals
will be able to hide in the telecommunications loophole. Officials have
repeatedly said they will not violate court orders to look at the content
of calls or data messages
The argument doesn't sway civil liberties groups. "If it's not feasible,
the telcos shouldn't have to hand the information over," Steinhardt said.
"[The FBI] shouldn't be given access to information they're not entitled
to."
Comments on the issue of tapping Net calls, as well as the rest of the
FCC's digital wiretapping plan, are due December 14. Telephone companies
are not required to comply with the CALEA provisions until June 30, 2000.
Related news stories
Dutch ISPs could face wiretap law April 14, 1998
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,21084,00.html?st.ne.ni.rel
FBI wiretap plan scrutinized February 16, 1998
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,19177,00.html?st.ne.ni.rel
Dutch ISP won't tap email November 14, 1997
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,16395,00.html?st.ne.ni.rel
Watchdogs howl at FBI wiretap plans August 11, 1997
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,13264,00.html?st.ne.ni.rel
Copyright © 1995-98 CNET, Inc.
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