[DMCA-Activists] Fwd: [IP] CDT Paper on VoIP and Law Enforcement Surveillance:

[Seth Johnson]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Farber <address@hidden>
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 16:32:52 -0500
Subject: [IP] CDT Paper on VoIP and Law Enforcement Surveillance:


Delivered-To: address@hidden
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 15:47:52 -0500
From: Jim Dempsey <address@hidden>

Here is CDT's initial position paper on VoIP and CALEA - comments
welcome:


CDT Paper on VoIP and Law Enforcement Surveillance:

Law Enforcement Concerns Can Be Addressed Without Regulation,
Which Would  Stifle Innovation, Raise Costs, Risk Security

March 15, 2004

There is nothing untappable about packet or Internet technology. Packet
services currently available for voice (and data) are tappable at one
or 
more points in the networks, and service providers are quite willing to
work with law enforcement to satisfy interception orders quickly and 
fully.  But the Internet is different from the traditional telephone 
network, and government agencies should not expect that surveillance
will 
be carried out on the Internet the same way it is carried out in the 
circuit-switched telephone network.  The digital revolution has
produced 
many means of communication and it is not reasonable to require that
all of 
them identify calls and route traffic the same way that the telephone 
network does.

Yet the Justice Department and the FBI are trying to force the
diversity of 
services available over the Internet into a single format resembling
the 
telephone network. On March 10, 2004, DOJ and FBI filed a Joint
Petition 
for Expedited Rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission
asking 
the FCC (a) to declare that providers of "Voice over IP" (or Voice on
the 
Net) services are covered by the Communications Assistance for Law 
Enforcement Act ("CALEA"), and (b) to create a regulatory process under
which new communications protocols, applications, or services must be 
reviewed and approved by the FBI before they can be deployed.

CALEA was adopted in 1994 in response to law enforcement concerns that 
wiretaps would be more difficult in digital telephone networks than
they 
had been with the analog phone system.  CALEA required
"telecommunications 
carriers" to design basic wiretap capabilities into their networks.  As
it 
was implemented, the CALEA statute gave the FBI very precise design
control 
over telephone switching software.  The FBI was able to convince the
FCC to 
mandate very specific features, including - at substantial cost to
carriers 
- features that gave the government capabilities going beyond those
that 
had been available in older phone systems.  Thus CALEA was used to
enhance 
rather than merely preserve government surveillance capabilities.

The CALEA statute applies only to telecommunications common carriers.
It 
does not apply to "information services." Congress realized that the 
Internet was fundamentally different from the telephone system and
Congress 
chose not to apply CALEA to the Internet and "information services"
carried 
over it.  VoIP is an information service and therefore is not covered
by 
CALEA.  Although ISPs and Internet application providers must (and do) 
comply with interception orders under the wiretap laws, they have not
had 
to design their networks and services to meet FBI specifications.
The Joint Petition seeks to alter the balance initially struck in
CALEA, 
and asks the FCC to extend CALEA to cover broadband ISPs and
application 
providers that offer VoIP services.  Moreover, the Joint Petition asks
the 
FCC to create a system under which any new technology that might
replace a 
range of existing communications technologies must be reviewed and
approved 
by the FBI before deployment.
Such a prior-review requirement would destroy the United States'
ability to 
innovate on the Internet, and would in effect overturn the critical 
decisions of the FCC over the years that facilitated the rise of the 
Internet as a mass communications medium.  The changes that the FBI
seeks 
are not necessary to allow law enforcement to carry out court-ordered 
interceptions.  The Internet and technology industries are working hard
to 
meet the needs of law enforcement, and the imposition of the sweeping 
regulatory regime advocated by the Joint Petition is not necessary to 
provide law enforcement with the ability to carry out its 
investigations.  Surveillance features built in to satisfy government 
demands could undermine the openness and security of the Internet.

For more information, contact Jim Dempsey, Lara Flint or John Morris at
(202) 637-9800.

--
Jim Dempsey

Executive Director
Center for Democracy and Technology
Policy Director, Global Internet Policy Initiative
1634 I Street, NW Suite 1100
Washington DC, 20006
voice: +1 202 637-9800  Ext. 112
fax: +1 202 637-0968
cell: +1 202 365-8026
address@hidden
http://www.cdt.org

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