Re: S.2281 Hearing (was: Justice Dept: Wiretaps...)

[John Curran <jcurran () istaff org>]

At 12:06 AM -0400 6/20/04, Sean Donelan wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, John Curran wrote:
> > S.2281 takes the middle of the road position in areas such as lawful
> > intercept, universal service fund, and E911.   At a high-level, those
> > VoIP services which offer PSTN interconnection (and thereby look like
> > traditional phone service in terms of capabilities) under S.2281 pick up
> > the same regulatory requirements.
>
> It sounds good, if you assume there will always be a PSTN.  But its
> like defining the Internet in terms of connecting to the ARPANET.

Correct.  It's a workable interim measure to continue today's practice
while the edge network is transitioning to VoIP.  It does not address
the more colorful long-term situation that law enforcement will be in
shortly with abundant, ad-hoc, encrypted p2p communications.

> What about Nextel's phone-to-phone talk feature which doesn't touch
> the PSTN?  What about carriers who offer "Free" on-net calling, which
> doesn't connect to the PSTN and off-net calling to customers on the
> PSTN or other carriers.
>
> Will the bad guys follow the law, and only conduct their criminal
> activities over services connected to the PSTN?

Sean - what alternative position do you propose?
/John