more on CALEA - Final Rule

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Date: July 6, 2006 5:48:04 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] CALEA - Final Rule

Dave:

This is disturbing. The FCC Report and Order on CALEA (see http:// 
cryptome.org/fcc070506.htm) appears to drag all broadband providers  
-- including small, rural ISPs such as myself -- into a messy  
regulatory regime, merely because one of my customers might choose to  
use a VoIP service. Worse still, the requirements are vague and  
potentially extremely onerous.

I do not offer VoIP myself, but of course it is possible for any of  
my customers to do VoIP via a third party service. Now, any VoIP  
service worth its salt would encrypt conversations such that it would  
be pointless to intercept calls by tapping my network. Any rational  
law enforcement agency would want to go to one of the ends, where the  
data was present in the clear, to listen in on the call. What's more,  
even the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently ruled in an  
awkward, poorly reasoned split decision (see

http://www.epic.org/privacy/wiretap/ace_v_fcc.pdf

for the text) that the FCC could define the words of a statute  
differently in different contexts to reach an outcome it desired,  
admits that non-VoIP traffic is clearly not subject to interception  
under CALEA.

There is no rational reason to subject an ISP such as myself to the  
statute's expensive requirements. Yet, the FCC is trying to do so.  
What's more, to add insult to injury, it has stated that it does not  
intend to allow ISPs to be compensated for the expense of making  
their networks tappable. In short, the FCC seems eager to impose  
requirements upon us which would do nothing to enhance homeland  
security but could well drive us and other independent ISPs out of  
business. This would ensure a cable/telco duopoly and hamper the  
expansion of broadband service to rural areas like ours.

In my opinion, the FCC R&O *must* be challenged via an appeal of the  
lower court's ruling to the Supreme Court. Otherwise, the end of  
broadband competition may have just come much closer.

--Brett Glass, LARIAT.NET



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