S.2281 Hearing (was: Justice Dept: Wiretaps...)

Sun Jun 20 04:06:26 UTC 2004

On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, John Curran wrote:
> S.2281 takes the middle of the road position in areas such as lawful
> intercept, universal service fund, and E911.   At a high-level, those
> VoIP services which offer PSTN interconnection (and thereby look like
> traditional phone service in terms of capabilities) under S.2281 pick up
> the same regulatory requirements.

It sounds good, if you assume there will always be a PSTN.  But its
like defining the Internet in terms of connecting to the ARPANET.

What about Nextel's phone-to-phone talk feature which doesn't touch
the PSTN?  What about carriers who offer "Free" on-net calling, which
doesn't connect to the PSTN and off-net calling to customers on the
PSTN or other carriers.

Will the bad guys follow the law, and only conduct their criminal
activities over services connected to the PSTN?

> With respect to facilitating lawful intercept, the opening comments of
> Ms. Laura Parsky (Deputy Assistant Attorney General, US DoJ) and
> James Dempsey, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and
> Technology (CDT) are quite informative.   The DoJ view is that S.2281
> is not enough, and any service using switching or transport should
> facilitate lawful intercept.  This position has the advantage of clarity,
> but there are lots of communications (chat/IM/etc) that are going to
> hard to decode and make readily available as needed.  It is also an
> expansion of the current framework of CALEA, which specifically sets
> aside information services including email and messaging.

Its a return to DoJ's pre-CALEA position.  Its almost a word-for-word
replay of the debates in 1992/1993 and the Digital Telephony proposals.

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/CALEA/digtel92_old_bill.draft

Briefing Report to the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance,
Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives by the
United States General Accounting Office (GAO/IMTEC-92-68BR, July 1992),

  The FBI now has the technical ability required to wiretap certain
  technologies, such as analog voice communications carried over public
  networks' copper wire. However, since 1986, the FBI has become
  increasingly aware of the potential loss of wiretapping capability due
  to the rapid deployment of new technologies, such as cellular and
  integrated voice and data services, and the emergence of new
  technologies such as Personal Communication Services, satellites, and
  Personal Communication Numbers.

  There are six current or imminent telecommunications technologies that
  the FBI needs to be able to wiretap. These are (1) analog and digital
  using copper wire transport, (2) analog and digital using fiber optic
  transport, (3) Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), (4) Private
  Branch Exchange (PBX), (5) broadband, and (6) cellular. There are also
  three future technologies for which wiretapping capabilities need to be
  addressed: (1) satellite switches, (2) Personal Communication Services
  (PCS), and (3) Personal Communication Number (PCN). Further, the FBI
  needs to be able to wiretap any special features, such as call
  forwarding or electronic mail.