Tuesday, January 31, 2006

More Government Intrusion

This Washington Post article describes a ruling by the FCC that CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) may be applied to all Internet communications.

"In March 2004 the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Agency petitioned the FCC to expand CALEA to cover Internet-based communications. The original statute applied only to calls made using the public switched telephone network.

The FCC's proposal would require that all VoIP hardware vendors comply with the wiretap mandate within 18 months of the order's effective date, but Templeton claims that many router vendors have already added the wiretap capability to their shipping products, despite the fact that the FCC hasn't yet issued any instructions for doing so. Templeton adds that the cost of implementing this proposal will be passed onto the businesses and consumers who use the products.

Among the politicians opposing the FCC's Internet wiretap plan is Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the chief sponsor of the original CALEA legislation. Leahy says the Internet was explicitly excluded from the law's surveillance rules, with the understanding that the exclusion could be revisited. However, he claims that extending CALEA to the Internet of today is counter to the intention of Congress."

It's a rare day when I find myself in agreement with both Patrick Leahy and the ACLU. I've no doubt this would be valuable to law enforcement; but so would requiring all citizens to give police a key to their house. Heck, let's just all get government ID numbers tattooed on the back of our necks!

Seriously, "backdoors" for government monitoring has so much potential for abuse that it must be fought. The EFF (Electronic Frontiers Foundation) is a good place to start.

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