Black Hawk
16 Dec 2003, 10:03am
If a rapid-fire series of announcements from cable and telecom bigwigs last week confirms that Voice over IP (VoIP) has a future as a mainstream consumer technology, it's worth noting that the electronic surveillance mavens in the FBI and Justice Department saw it coming.
The announcements came on the heels of a day-long public forum held 1 December at the FCC to address the most contentious issue surrounding VoIP: whether or not it should be subject to the same government regulations as traditional wireline telephone services. Two days after that public forum, according to FCC filings, FBI officials had a more private meeting with half-a-dozen FCC staffers to reiterated the Bureau's view on the matter: VoIP should be regulated - at least enough to ensure that the FBI can listen-in.
At issue is the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), the Federal law that required telephone companies to modify their networks to be wiretap-friendly for the FBI.
Source: The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/34512.html)
The announcements came on the heels of a day-long public forum held 1 December at the FCC to address the most contentious issue surrounding VoIP: whether or not it should be subject to the same government regulations as traditional wireline telephone services. Two days after that public forum, according to FCC filings, FBI officials had a more private meeting with half-a-dozen FCC staffers to reiterated the Bureau's view on the matter: VoIP should be regulated - at least enough to ensure that the FBI can listen-in.
At issue is the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), the Federal law that required telephone companies to modify their networks to be wiretap-friendly for the FBI.
Source: The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/34512.html)