Re: For one company, FISA wiretaps carry a $1K pricetag

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <suresh () hserus net>
Date: October 24, 2007 8:31:40 AM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>, <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Cc: <ken () new-isp net>
Subject: RE: [IP] For one company, FISA wiretaps carry a $1K pricetag

> From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)

> [Note:  This item comes from reader Ken DiPietro.  DLH]
>
> For one company, FISA wiretaps carry a $1K pricetag

You know, there's something any telco or ISP, in fact any organization
dealing with a federal agency, especially a law enforcement agency,  
does -
and that is establish a standard operations procedure for any kind of
warrant or subpoena compliance.

It is also routine for a processing fee to be paid by the government to
cover some of the costs, at least, of compliance with such a request.
Especially when wiretap infrastructure certainly has a high cost and  
a good
amount of network (re)engineering to build into a system.

Wiretaps and subpoenas are routine, and older - far older than FISA.   
And
they will continue to exist as long as criminals (common or garden
criminals, no need to invoke the terrorist bogey here) exist, and as  
long as
they use phones, faxes, email ..

So, not too surprisingly, phone companies have had processes in place to
handle court orders for wiretaps ever since there have been wiretaps.

It is astonishingly naïve to express surprise that a telco has  
processes,
and processing fees, in place to handle wiretap requests.

> "I think it's more or an interesting nugget" of information,"
> Aftergood said. "Even if there are let's say 100 or 200 $1,000
> payments (for FISA intercepts) over the course of a year, I think
> those would be indistinguishable from the larger revenue stream."

Umm.. guess what it costs to re-engineer a network to comply with  
wiretaps,
to store the "take" from the taps in something that is more reliable  
than a
USB stick, in a format that has timestamps and checksums, say, to ensure
that it is authenticated and can be used as evidence, and the costs of
maintaining an audit trail for this kind of request, training staff for
compliance and ensuring the confidentiality of / controlling access  
to such
data.

In fact, there are a whole lot of things that a responsible ISP needs  
to do
in order to protect its users privacy EXCEPT UNDER DUE PROCESS OF LAW
(unlike that scandal in Greece where the wiretap equipment was  
misused to
snoop into opposition politicians' cellphones).

All those things cost rather more than pocket change to implement and
maintain.  And they invariably involve substantial amounts of work  
for what
is probably the costliest "team" in a telco or ISP - their legal  
department.

Question FISA if you wish - I do too.  I would rather you turn all this
righteous wrath and indignation in the right direction, rather than  
accuse
telcos - at least in this case - of profiteering and turning it into a
"revenue stream".  For revenue stream it is not, it is a huge time  
and money
sink.

Further, you will find that most law enforcement agencies are  
chronically
underfunded when it comes to the "operational" side of things - they  
aren't
the easiest to milk by overcharging for routine requests (by which I  
mean
subpoena compliance and wiretaps in general, not FISA - which is  
simply a
special, and yes, objectionable, case of wiretapping).

        suresh



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