Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Thomas <thomas AT tbeckett.com>]

Of course, if you're not guilty of anything, you have nothing to worry 
about.

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/9263

U.S. regulators on Wednesday ruled tentatively in favor of an FBI and 
Justice Department proposal that would compel Internet broadband and 
VoIP providers to open their networks up to easy surveillance by law 
enforcement agencies.

At issue is the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act 
(CALEA), a federal law that mandates surveillance backdoors in U.S. 
telephone networks, allowing the FBI to start listening in on a target's 
phone calls within minutes of receiving court approval. Last March, the 
Department of Justice, the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration jointly petitioned the Federal Communications Commission 
(FCC) for a ruling that cable modem companies and other broadband 
providers are also covered by the law.

"Our support for law enforcement is unwavering," said FCC chairman 
Michael Powell, reading from a statement at a public meeting of the 
commission Wednesday. "It is our goal in this proceeding to ensure that 
law enforcement agencies have all of the electronic surveillance 
capabilities that CALEA authorizes to combat crime and terrorism and 
support homeland security."

The 5-0 ruling is open to public comment before it takes effect, and the 
FCC is seeking guidance on some implementation details, including the 
issue of how much time to allow service providers to wire their networks 
for spying.

Though the ruling was unanimous, two commissioners expressed concern 
that the FCC's interpretation of the 1994 law was precarious, and might 
later be overturned in the courts. "There are better was to build a 
system that will encourage judicial approval," said commissioner Michael 
Copps." As it is, the ruling is "too flush with tentative conclusions 
that stretch the statutory framework almost to tear," Copps said.

The decision is a milestone for the Justice Department, which first 
began lobbying for CALEA's application to the Internet over two years ago.

Federal law already compels ISPs to cooperate with law enforcement in 
court-approved surveillance of customers, but as police rely more on 
Internet snooping -- with tools like the FBI's "Carnivore" DCS-1000 
packet sniffer -- they've begun to crave the speed and ease-of-use of 
the wiretapping infrastructure that CALEA grafted onto the modern 
telephone network.

The EFF, ACLU, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center 
for Democracy and Technology all filed comments opposing the plan, and 
an ACLU letter-drive generated hundreds of mailings from citizens 
against what the group called "the New Ashcroft Internet Snooping Request."