Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Government surveillance of online phone calls sparks controversy

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 15:24:35 -0400

Posted 4/4/2003 11:14 AM

Government surveillance of online phone calls sparks controversy

NEW YORK (AP) — Wiretapping takes on a
whole new meaning now that phone calls are
being made over the Internet, posing legal and
technical hurdles for the FBI as it seeks to
prevent the emerging services from becoming a
safe haven for criminals and terrorists.

The FBI wants regulators to affirm that such
services fall under a 1994 law requiring phone
companies to build in surveillance capabilities. It
is also pushing the industry to create technical
standards to make wiretapping easier and
cheaper.

But privacy advocates fear that because online eavesdropping technology is
crude, tapping into the data
stream for voice means getting more than what a court ordered — including
possibly e-mail and other
digital communications.

Service operators also question who should pay.

The increasingly popular "Voice over Internet Protocol," or VoIP, technology
breaks phone
conversations into data packets, sends them over the Internet and reassembles
them at the destination.

Such calls, made on handsets or using computer microphones, are more efficient
and cheaper than
traditional calls, which require that a dedicated circuit remain open.

The technology creates gray areas in applying the 1994 Communications Assistance
for Law Enforcement
Act. That law required that then-emerging digital phone technologies, which are
more difficult to wiretap
than analog circuits, be designed so authorities could monitor them.

Lawmakers exempted information services like the Internet, but didn't anticipate
Net-based voice calls.

Now, as the Federal Communications Commission considers the extent that
high-speed Internet services
through cable and DSL should be free of regulation, the FBI and the Justice
Department want assurances
that those services also build in surveillance functions.

Because VoIP is so new, standards don't exist for setting up networks, let alone
for eavesdropping.
Several groups, including the Telecommunications Industry Association, are
working on VoIP surveillance
standards.

In January, the FBI convened a summit for law enforcement and industry
representatives to identify core
issues.

"We're seeing major changes in the network, and we are trying to be ahead of the
curve," said Les
Szwajkowski, the FBI's unit chief for electronic surveillance.

On its face, the debate is less about law enforcers' surveillance authority and
more about whether Voice
over Internet companies need to provide capabilities ahead of time.

Authorities should be the ones providing and paying for such capabilities on a
case-by-case basis, said
Michael Altschul, general counsel for the Cellular Telecommunications and
Internet Association.

Although Szwajkowski said law enforcers are merely applying existing authority
to emerging technologies,
David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center worries about an
expansion in wiretaps.

Some court orders cover only call information — who called whom and when — but
not what they said.
But Sobel said the call contents and data on other subscribers could get mixed
in by FBI surveillance
tools.

In addition, he said, once capabilities are enabled for voice calls, they could
easily be extended to cover
e-mail, Web traffic and more.

Sobel, at this week's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, also noted that
under draft legislation
from Justice, dubbed Patriot II, legal wiretap authority for phones would
automatically cover e-mail and
electronic calendars.

Szwajkowski said he was mostly worried about voice communications online, but
acknowledged that the
FBI later might be "potentially looking at other things as well."

So far, the FBI has not publicly cited any case in which VoIP impeded a wiretap.
Szwajkowski indicated
his efforts were more about looking ahead.

Some services, like Vonage and Net2Phone, say they are already working to
incorporate surveillance
capabilities, even though they believe they are under no legal obligation to do
so.

But the Internet poses challenges not found in phone networks.

For one, intercepting a voice stream means diverting it, making a copy and
sending it along again, and
tech-savvy criminals might be able to tell that the call was relayed through an
intermediary.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-04-04-phone-monitor_x.htm

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