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FBI Wants More Wiretapping Authority

The FBI wants more wiretapping authority--in particular, it wants to be able to intercept calls on a new protocol--Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP):

The debate over government interception of Internet communications has expanded to a new technology, namely Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) transmissions. Indeed, representatives of the FBI’s Electronic Surveillance Technology Section in Chantilly, Virginia have been meeting secretly with the Federal Communications Commission since July, 2003, exploring ways to provide the FBI with more regulatory authority to “wiretap” Internet communications, and in particular VoIP transmissions. [i] The FBI along with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice want VoIP providers declared as “telecommunications carrier[s]” under the Federal Communications Act of 1996 and the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (“CALEA”).[ii] These three federal law enforcement organizations declared that if left unregulated, VoIP would provide a means of communications whereby “terrorists, spies, and criminals … [can] most likely evade lawful electronic surveillance.” [iii]

....The FBI now has taken the position that the combination of the federal wiretap laws, originally enacted in 1964, and amended numerous times since,[xiv] along with CALEA, give it the authority to wiretap DSL and other types of broadband services, including VoIP. [xv]

Here's a description of VOIP, the use of which

....Voice Over Internet Protocol allows analog voice signals to be digitized into packets of data, sent over a series of networks, and reassembled at the other end. [iv]. In other words, telephone calls that have traditionally, since the late 19th century, been made through Public Switching Technology Networks (“PSTN”) are now initiated, transmitted and received through computer networks, and thereby avoid long distance telephone charges. The technology, introduced in 1995, stumbled along until recent improvements in the sound quality and transmission reliability have made “phone carriers …practically tripping over each other to announce aggressive VoIP strategies aimed at both consumers and businesses

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