Nov. 17--The federal government wants to peer into your computer communications, forcing companies that provide high-speed access or Internet-based telephone service to design -- or redesign -- their networks to accommodate surveillance.
On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission gave broadband Internet service and voice-over-Internet Protocol services, or VoIP, 18 months to ensure that their networks are wiretap-ready. This followed the FCC's formal release of the order in September.
Privacy advocates say law enforcement agencies already can wiretap Internet services. They criticize the FCC for overstepping its bounds by requiring businesses to devise systems to the specifications of the federal government.
"This is like saying, 'Everybody has to keep their doors unlocked because the FBI might need to get in,'" said Mark Rasch, a former attorney who handled computer crime cases for the Justice Department and is now senior vice president and chief security counsel of Solutionary Inc., an Omaha, Neb., computer security consulting company. "The harm of everybody keeping their doors unlocked all the time is much greater than the benefit."
A coalition led by the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates for civil liberties, asked a federal appeals court judge to overturn the FCC order last month. But law enforcement officials, including the Department of Homeland Security, argue that they must expand surveillance to combat terrorism and other crimes as new technologies emerge. The battle underscores the daunting technological challenges law enforcement officials face and how the government will encounter strong resistance to regulating the Internet.
The FCC order comes after the voice-over-Internet industry strongly resisted a ruling earlier this year requiring the services to offer the same 911 service traditional telephone companies provide.
The expansion of wiretapping capability goes back to the 1990s, when law enforcement agencies worried that digital and wireless communications could hinder surveillance. So Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act in 1994, requiring telephone companies to build surveillance capability into their networks.
The act excludes information services, so opponents say the FCC can't extend the law to high-speed Internet and VoIP services.
But in its September ruling the FCC relied on a provision in the act, known as CALEA, that covers services that replace the local telephone exchanges, ruling that VoIP can replace traditional telephone service. Further, the FCC ruled that broadband service -- even with VoIP -- replaces dial-up Internet access and therefore replaces a portion of the telephone system.
However, some FCC commissioners at that time noted that the ruling was "not without legal risk" and that "the statute is undeniably stretched to recognize new service technologies."
But the commissioners said the need for surveillance outweighed those concerns. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said "responding to the needs of law enforcement is of paramount importance."
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said: "As communications technologies develop, we must ensure that such progress does not come at the expense of our nation's safety and security."
Still, critics contend the FCC order would compromise the services' security, stifle innovation and increase costs for consumers.
Security experts, civil liberties advocates and some high-tech executives also said building in wiretapping capability could provide a back door to hackers.
"Anything the FBI can do, the hackers will be able to do," said Rasch.
Opponents also insist that the ruling leaves open the possibility that the government could further expand its reach beyond high-speed Internet and VoIP hardware to specify how companies must design software, hindering advancements in technology.
Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group focusing on technology issues, said: "It doesn't authorize wiretaps. It does something much more intrusive: It dictates the design of technologies from law enforcement's standpoint."
Sherman Siy, staff counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy group in Washington, D.C., agrees. "Expanding CALEA is expanding the extent to which the government can dictate the design requirements of more and more types of communications -- broadband providers, VoIP lines -- and, if you believe the legal reasoning underlying their rulemaking, even computer software or voice chat in computer games," he said.
On a more practical note, Lloyd Levine, 44, a programmer in Holtsville and VoIP customer, wouldn't want his surcharge-free service to add a fee for compliance with the law enforcement act.
"I would hate to see another fee passed along to the consumer," he said. "We're all being nickled and dimed to death by everybody looking to pass on costs to the consumer."
