sally wrote:

>
>
> FCC approves Net-wiretapping taxes
> By Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache
> Staff Writer, CNET News.com
>
> Published: May 3, 2006, 10:53 AM PDT
> Last modified: May 3, 2006, 1:11 PM PDT
>
> update WASHINGTON--Broadband providers and Internet phone companies
> will have to pick up the tab for the cost of building in mandatory
> wiretap access for police surveillance, federal regulators ruled
> Wednesday.
>
> The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to levy what
> likely will amount to wiretapping taxes on companies, municipalities
> and universities, saying it would create an incentive for them to keep
> costs down and that it was necessary to fight the war on terror.
> Universities have estimated their cost to be about $7 billion.
>
> "The first obligation is...the safety of the people," said FCC
> Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat. "This commission supports
> efforts to protect the public safety and homeland security of the
> United States and its people."
>
> Federal police agencies have spent years lobbying for mandatory
> backdoors for easy surveillance, saying "criminals, terrorists and
> spies" could cloak their Internet communications with impunity unless
> centralized wiretapping hubs become mandatory. Last year, the FCC set
> a deadline of May 14, 2007, for compliance. But universities,
> libraries and some technology companies have filed suit against the
> agency, and arguments before a federal court are scheduled for Friday.
> "We're going to have a lot of fights over cost reimbursement," Al
> Gidari, a partner at the law firm of Perkins Coie, who is co-counsel
> in the lawsuit, said in an interview after the vote. "It continues the
> lunacy of their prior order and confirms they've learned nothing from
> what's been filed" in the lawsuit, he said.
>
> The original 1994 law, called the Communications Assistance for Law
> Enforcement Act, or CALEA, authorized $500 million to pay
> telecommunications carriers for the cost of upgrading their networks
> to facilitate wiretapping. Some broadband and voice over Internet
> Protocol (VoIP) providers had hoped that they'd be reimbursed as well.
> Jonathan Askin, general counsel of Pulver.com, likened Wednesday's
> vote to earlier FCC rules extending 911 regulations to VoIP. "It
> essentially imposed a mandate on the industry without giving the
> industry the necessary support to abide by the rules--and the same
> thing seems to be happening here," Askin said.
>
> Even without the CALEA regulations, police have the legal authority to
> conduct Internet wiretaps--that's precisely what the FBI's Carnivore
> system was designed to do. Still, the FBI has argued, the need for
> "standardized broadband intercept capabilities is especially urgent in
> light of today's heightened threats to homeland security and the
> ongoing tendency of criminals to use the most clandestine modes of
> communication."
>
> The American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 colleges and
> universities, estimates that the costs of CALEA compliance could total
> roughly $7 billion for the entire higher-education community, or a
> tuition hike of $450 for every student in the nation. Documents filed
> in the lawsuit challenging the FCC's rules put the cost at hundreds of
> dollars per student.
>
> But during Wednesday's vote, commissioners dismissed those concerns as
> unfounded. "I am not persuaded merely by largely speculative
> allegations that the financial burden on the higher-education
> community could total billions of dollars," said FCC Commissioner
> Deborah Taylor Tate, a Republican.
>
> The FCC's initial ruling last fall had left open the question of
> whether broadband and VoIP providers would be reimbursed for rewiring
> their networks and upgrading equipment to comply with CALEA.
>
> Another open question is what portion of a university's or library's
> network must be rendered wiretap-friendly. One possibility is that
> only the pipe (or pipes) connecting a school with the rest of the
> Internet must be made CALEA-compliant. Another is that the entire
> network would be covered.
>
> The FCC adopted its second order on Wednesday but released only a
> two-page summary, which didn't offer much clarity. In its initial
> ruling last year, the FCC said only that it had reached "no
> conclusions" about exactly what universities and libraries would have
> to do, prompting a flurry of comments filed with the agency and the
> federal lawsuit. (Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Sun Microsystems,
> the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and
> Technology, the American Library Association, the American Council on
> Education and VoIP firm Pulver.com.)
>
> Commissioner Copps acknowledged that there is "still some clarity to
> be provided" for library and university network operators, but he
> suggested that additional clarity would not be forthcoming from the
> FCC. Instead, "all those agencies and offices of government who are
> involved in CALEA implementation should be working together to provide
> clarity there to avoid confusion and possibly expenses for these
> institutions," Copps said.
>
> At the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference here Wednesday, John
> Morris of the Center for Democracy and Technology said libraries and
> universities are still left with more questions than answers.
>
> "There's some serious uncertainty about how it will really play out
> for universities," Morris said. Even if the FCC technically calls for
> Internet interception at the edge of a campus network, that likely
> won't be enough to satisfy law enforcement demands for all of an
> individual student's network traffic, including on-campus activities,
> he added.
>
> Injecting additional uncertainty is whether the FCC's action is legal.
> It represents what critics call an unreasonable extension of
> CALEA--which was designed to address telephone features such as
> three-way calling and call waiting--to the Internet.
>
> A House of Representatives committee report (click here for PDF)
> prepared in October 1994 emphatically says CALEA's requirements "do
> not apply to information services such as electronic-mail services; or
> online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or Mead
> Data (Central); or to Internet service providers."
>
> When Congress was debating CALEA, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh
> reassured nervous senators that the law would be limited to telephone
> calls. "So what we are looking for is strictly telephone--what is said
> over a telephone?" Sen. Larry Pressler, R-S.D., asked during one
> hearing.
>
> Freeh replied: "That is the way I understand it. Yes, sir."
>
> Two of the four FCC commissioners who voted for the initial CALEA
> ruling last fall acknowledged that the federal government was on shaky
> legal ground. The FCC's regulation is based on arguing that the law's
> definition of "telecommunications carrier" applies to broadband and
> VoIP providers.
>
> Then-FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, a Republican, said, "Because
> litigation is as inevitable as death and taxes, and because some might
> not read the statute to permit the extension of CALEA to the broadband
> Internet access and VoIP services at issue here, I have stated my
> concern that an approach like the one we adopt today is not without
> legal risk."
>
> The FCC is no stranger to having its decisions rejected by a federal
> appeals court that can be hostile to what it views as regulatory
> overreaching. Last May, for instance, the FCC's "broadcast flag" was
> unceremoniously tossed out by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
> Circuit.
>
>
http://news.com.com/FCC+approves+Net...?tag=nefd.lede
> --



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