Webtapping battle lines drawn

'Significant risk to the entire Internet'

Law enforcement support

Not surprisingly, Internet service providers also oppose the plan, including AT&T, Earthlink, WorldCom, the United Power Line Council, which consists of companies working on broadband over power line services, and a group called the ISP CALEA Coalition, which wrote that the Justice Department's proposal "seeks to overturn the balance struck by Congress between law enforcement and continued innovation." Local phone companies proved more agnostic.

An earlier FCC ruling found that DSL service was already covered by CALEA, inasmuch as it travels over telephone lines. It is "critical", Verizon argued, that CALEA also be applied to cable modem companies, lest criminals give up their DSL and flock to the competing services of cable providers for a little privacy. SBC neither opposed nor supported applying CALEA to broadband, but urged that the FCC develop a full record to guide implementers. Bellsouth took a position more in line with the ISPs, urging the FCC not expand CALEA without a full rulemaking process, and arguing that the law simply doesn't permit what the Justice Department is seeking.

Law enforcement agencies heartily supported expanding CALEA to the Internet. New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer set out the state's history of successful organised crime prosecutions based on telephone wiretaps, and said the FCC "should assure that as new services are developed, carriers and manufacturers will deploy eavesdropping capability and that it will punish those who do not." (Spitzer also took the opportunity to complain about the high fees wireless companies bill the state to perform cell phone taps.)

The Texas Department of Public Safety supported the petition, as did the International Association of Chiefs of Poilce, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the Los Angeles County Regional Criminal Information Clearinghouse, which operates an electronic surveillance centre used by various local law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles, including the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

The Clearinghouse filing argues that the local police don't have the FBI's resources to develop their own eavesdropping solutions, and that without the broadband backdoors sought by the Justice Department, they've "been thwarted" in their efforts to surveil Internet users. To emphasis the importance of electronic surveillance in policing the City of Angels, the Clearinghouse attached a three-page list of wiretapping successes, including several murder convictions supposedly made possible by intercepted phone calls.

Los Angeles hasn't always been so open with its wiretapping. In 1998, the LAPD admitted to concealing the use of court-authorised wiretaps from defence lawyers in 58 different criminal cases over five years, by treating information gathered from the taps as tips from confidential informants - a ruse that prevented defendants in the resulting arrests from challenging the legality of the surveillance. The skulduggery came to light when a public defender noticed a discrepancy in wiretap statistics; a Superior Court judge later ordered an end to the practice and full disclosure of the secret wiretaps.

Finally, the proposal won the support of Massachusetts-based Top Layer Networks, which describes itself as "a leading provider of IP Interception appliances" and found the government's argument "very logical and completely justified," and VeriSign, which offers its NetDiscovery surveillance services to telecom companies that prefer to outsource their FBI wiretaps.

VeriSign argued that tapping the Internet is good for the nation. "Criminals have the ability to act on a network in microseconds, while law enforcement is encumbered today with solutions that require weeks to institute judicially ordered capabilities," reads the filing. The company helpfully attached a press release about it's recent deal to provide NetDiscovery services to cable company Cox Communications for an undisclosed amount.

The FCC is accepting reply comments on the petition until 27 April.

Copyright © 2004,

Related stories

Milking the Internet surveillance cash cow
Net censorship hits all time high
Bruce Schneier on crypto, the FBI, privacy and more
White House recommends more on-line snooping
FBI spying easier thanks to Y2K