Source: voipcentral.org
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a legal challenge against an order by the ever increasing autocratic body the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would give sweeping powers to the governments surveillance powers on the Internet.
Chris Calabrese, program counsel for the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project said; “The FCC has unilaterally granted the FBI a sweeping expansion of its surveillance powers on the Internet, far in excess of what Congress authorized or intended. If the Justice Department or the FCC wants to expand surveillance powers, they need to go back and ask Congress to vote on it. In the meantime, we are asking the Court to rein the Commission back in.”
At centre of the issue is the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), a controversial 1994 law that allows the FBI to force the telecommunications industry to build its technology in particular ways in order to make tapping wires easier. When Congress approved the statute, it restricted its application to traditional telephone companies and explicitly kept out “information services” such as the Internet from its loop. Notwithstanding this, at the prompting of the Department of Justice, in September the FCC ruled that CALEA does apply to companies that provide software allowing VoIP users to talk to each other and users of traditional telephones.
Gerard J Waldron who is a partner in Covington & Burling a Washington law firm that is representing the ACLU for the public good said; “The fledgling Internet phone industry is still experimenting with a variety of technologies, and serves just a small niche, yet the government would force companies to engineer wiretapping capabilities into every new product they develop - before they’ve even worked out the bugs or tested their success in the marketplace. Congress didn’t want to extend these trap-door requirements to the Internet and said so clearly.”
Comparing the FCC’s order to a law requiring all new homes be built with a peephole for law enforcement agents to look through, the ACLU said it was vital for the future of privacy on the Internet that these powers are reined in.
“The courts already slapped down the government once for trying to go beyond Congress’s intent on CALEA. That case had to do with the details of the law’s application to the industry the Congress intended to cover-the companies offering ‘plain old telephone service.’ This case goes well beyond traditional telephone service and straight to the Internet. It’s as if they failed trying to move the goal line - and now they’re attempting to claim an entirely new stadium; said Calabrese while referring to a 2000 ruling by a Washington, D.C. appeals court.
The FCC order is disgusting to say the least. It is perversity in the name of security which has been the perennial fetish of the present government for the last 4 years or so. Anyway, the last thing we need is interference by bureaucrats in development, application and spread of new technology. One of the most charming features of internet is the element of anonymity that it provides the users and privacy. Besides, the denial of the right to privacy is typical of police states that a democracy like US can do well without.
Via: North Country Gazette Thanks!
