Subject: [NEXTEL-1] CALEA Looms Over Wireless Broadband- Industry eyes implications of new wiretapping capabilities.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2004 14:46:06 -0400

CALEA Looms Over Wireless Broadband
Industry eyes implications of new wiretapping capabilities.
BY MARK ROCKWELL
APRIL 1, 2004

WASHINGTON– A request from law enforcement authorities to again
modernize their ability to tap into advanced telecom networks has some
wireless industry professionals wondering if the capability can keep up
with technology and privacy concerns.

In early March, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of
Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Administration formally asked
the FCC to look into how monitoring capabilities could be extended to
advancing broadband technology and what kind of carriers would be
responsible for meeting Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act (CALEA) wiretapping capability requirements.

The DOJ/FBI request specifically asks the FCC to reiterate a past ruling
that wireless push-to-talk (PTT) services fall under the CALEA
requirements. Law enforcement agencies also are grappling with VoIP and
other technologies such as Wi-Fi. And commissioners are struggling with
how VoIP meshes with other government mandates such as E911, disability
access and universal service, according to Bryan Tramont, FCC Chairman
Michael Powell's chief of staff.

"Preserving law enforcement's ability to conduct lawfully organized
electronic surveillance in the face of the increasing migration to new
technologies – namely broadband access services and broadband telephony
services – is exactly the situation that CALEA is intended to address,"
the petition says.

The commission almost immediately began soliciting public comments on
the petition. The deadline for comments is April 12, and, according to
Julius Knapp, deputy chief of the FCC's office of engineering and
technology, the agency plans a May workshop on the CALEA issue.

The wireless industry is watching the CALEA request closely for a number
of reasons. Services such as PTT and VoIP that travel in networks off
the traditional public circuit switched network aren't easily tapped
into, yet they're becoming more prevalent, according to Mike Altschul,
general counsel at CTIA. There are about 30,000 switches in the public
switched network that aggregate traffic where law enforcement can tap
into a call or communication.

The new CALEA request goes in some disturbing directions, Altschul says,
and possibly at the expense of advancing wireless broadband services.
"Is it intended to cover Wi-Fi hot spots?" he asks. If so, then
individual businesses could be told to provide the ability to tap into
their local network. Although Wi-Fi hasn't been specifically singled out
in the petition, "the FBI has expressed interest in the past about the
anonymity that hot spot access permits the user," he says.

Additionally, the petition raises some disturbing issues about how such
access
would be funded, he says. In the early 1990s, when the first CALEA was
drafted,
law enforcement and lawmakers accepted that because the tapping
capabilities
were to be used only by law enforcement, government had to reimburse
carriers
for their installation expense. The new CALEA petition, Altschul says,
doesn't
contain that basic assumption. It tends to make carriers recover costs
for the
installation from general income, possibly from ratepayers

http://www.wirelessweek.com/article/CA407898?spacedesc=Departments&stt=000

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