[Ecommerce] Re: [Upd-discuss] VoIP/CALEA: EFF, Others Call for Reversal of FCC CALEA Expansion for VoIP

[Dean Anderson]

Not only do you have to be wiretap friendly, but you have to pay to be wiretap
friendly.  Previously the government paid some of the costs.  And although this
is irrelevent to the privacy issue, the costs are actually pretty high for most
ISPs. So, basically, customers have to pay to have their communications tapped.

Kind of reminds me of the days when condemned prisoners had to pay for the
bullets used to execute them.

Of course, Verizon recently won a lawsuit against GlobalNAPS on local phone
access. So, basically, in order to get your Tivo updates, or PSTN-to-VOIP or
PSTN-to-efax services, or Dialup access, their CLEC has to pay Verizon an
additional roughly 1cent per minute.

That is about $15 a day ($450/mo) for a nailed-up dialup line.  For $450/mo, in
many places you can get a T1.  Pay for a T1, get a dialup line....

		--Dean

On Thu, 4 May 2006, Seth Johnson wrote:

>
> > http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004624.php
>
>
> May 03, 2006
>
> EFF Urges Reversal of FCC's Forcing Internet Services To Be
> Wiretap-Friendly
>
>
> On May 5, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral
> arguments in a suit brought by EFF and a coalition of public
> interest, industry, and academic groups challenging the FCC's
> unjustified expansion of the Communications Assistance for Law
> Enforcement Act (CALEA)
> (http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/). By forcing
> broadband Internet and interconnected voice over Internet
> Protocol (VoIP) services to become wiretap-friendly, the FCC
> ignored CALEA's plain language and threatened privacy, security,
> and innovation.
>
> When Congress controversially passed CALEA in 1994 and gave the
> FCC powers to mandate backdoors in traditional telephony systems,
> it expressly exempted "information services" such as the
> Internet. Yet after a petition from the FBI and other federal law
> enforcement agencies, the FCC ruled last year that companies like
> Vonage and private institutions that provide Net access must
> redesign their networks to facilitate wiretaps. On Wednesday, the
> FCC announced that these service providers would have to foot the
> bill -- an estimated $7 billion dollars for the universities
> alone
> (http://news.com.com/FCC+approves+Net-wiretapping+taxes/2100-1028_3-6067971.html?tag=nefd.lede).
>
> The FCC completely failed to give the law enforcement petitions
> the "hard look" that the public deserves when massive government
> surveillance proposals are on the table. While the FCC's unfunded
> tech mandate will undoubtedly harm the public, the government
> made no showing that there was any need to extend CALEA to
> Internet services at all.
>
> Indeed, just this past Monday, the Administrative Office of the
> U.S. Courts issued its annual wiretap report -- which revealed
> that only 8 court orders for Internet wiretaps were issued in
> 2005, down from 12 orders in each of the years 2003 and 2004 --
> and the report contains no indication that law enforcement had
> any problems in conducting these electronic surveillances.
>
> Petitioners in American Council on Education v. FCC include the
> American Library Association, the Center for Democracy and
> Technology, Electronic Privacy Information Center, EDUCAUSE,
> Pulver.com, and Sun Microsystems.
>
> Read the petitioners' opening and reply briefs here
> (http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/20060126ace-opening-brief.pdf)
> (http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/20060314calea.pdf).
>
> Posted by Derek Slater at 04:27 PM | CALEA
> (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/cat_calea.php) | Permalink
> (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004624.php) | Technorati
> (http://www.technorati.com/search/www.eff.org%2Fdeeplinks%2Farchives%2F004624.php)
>
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>
>

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