U.S. WANTS TO TAP VOIP

The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department have renewed their efforts to
wiretap voice conversations carried across the Internet.

The agencies have asked the Federal Communications Commission to order
companies offering voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to rewire
their networks to guarantee police the ability to eavesdrop on subscribers'
conversations.

Without such mandatory rules, the two agencies predicted in a letter to the
FCC last month that "criminals, terrorists, and spies (could) use VoIP
services to avoid lawfully authorized surveillance." The letter also was
signed by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

This is not the first time the Bush administration has expressed concern
about terrorists and other lawbreakers using VoIP to avoid wiretaps. As
previously reported by CNET News.com, a proposal presented quietly to the
FCC in July sought guaranteed surveillance access to broadband providers.
But the latest submission, which follows a recent FCC forum on Internet
telephony, is more detailed than before and specifically targets VoIP
providers as a regulatory focus.

In general, VoIP providers have pledged to work with police, and some, like
Level 3 Communications, do not oppose the regulations the FBI is seeking.
Others, like a coalition of 12 smaller VoIP providers including BullDog
Teleworks and PingTone Communications, have told the FCC that "there are
various industry initatives under way and the commission should allow those
initiatives time to succeed before preemptively regulating."

Federal and local police rely heavily on wiretaps. In 2002, the most recent
year for which information is available, police intercepted nearly
2.2-million conversations with court approval, according to the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Wiretaps for that year cost
taxpayers $69.5-million, and approximately 80 per cent were related to drug
investigations. Those statistics do not include approximately the same
number of additional wiretaps authorized by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act.

When weighing the FBI's request, the FCC will have to decide whether a 1994
law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA)
applies to VoIP providers. The law is ambiguous. It clearly requires
"telecommunications carriers" to provide ready wiretapping access while
explicitly exempting "information services." If the FCC decides CALEA does
not apply, the debate would shift to Congress, which could decide to amend
the law.

When Internet links are used to carry voice calls that begin and end in the
traditional, circuit-switched network - a move that Verizon Communications
announced Wednesday - that would easily fall within CALEA's existing
definitions. But Internet-to-Internet voice links like those offered by
VoIP companies Vonage and Skype are closer to information services and fall
into a regulatory gray area. The status of voice conversations carried
through instant-messaging programs is even more unclear, as is the FCC's
ability to compel overseas VoIP providers to comply with U.S. rules.

"The FCC should ignore pleas about national security and sophisticated
criminals because sophisticated parties will use noncompliant VoIP,
available open source and offshore," said Jim Harper of Privacilla.org, a
privacy advocacy Web site. "CALEA for VoIP will only be good for busting
small-time bookies, small-time potheads and other nincompoops."

One unusual section of the FBI letter is that it claims the bureau is
seeking to protect Americans' privacy rights: "Mandatory CALEA compliance
by VoIP providers would better protect the privacy of VoIP users than a
voluntary approach. CALEA protects the privacy of surveillance suspects by
requiring carriers to provision the surveillance in a confidential manner."
Otherwise, the FBI argues, a VoIP company might turn over a "full pipe" to
police that would include conversations of more people than necessary.

At least one FCC commissioner has expressed strong support for sweeping
VoIP into CALEA's requirements, which currently apply only to telephone
companies.

"We must understand the concerns raised by DOJ and FBI that classifying
Vonage's VoIP as an information service severely undercuts CALEA," Jonathan
Adelstein said last month. "VoIP jeopardizes the ability of federal, state
and local governments to protect public safety and national security
against domestic and foreign threats. Public safety is not negotiable."