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The Center for Democracy and Technology /____/ Volume 4, Number 7
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A briefing on public policy issues affecting civil liberties online
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CDT POLICY POST Volume 4, Number 7 March 27, 1998
CONTENTS: (1) CDT Asks FCC To Protect Communications Privacy, Scale
Back CALEA Plans
(2) CDT Tells House Panel Stronger Privacy Protections Needed
(3) A Note From Our Webmaster
(4) How to Subscribe/Unsubscribe
(5) About CDT, Contacting us
** This document may be redistributed freely with this banner intact **
Excerpts may be re-posted with permission of
|PLEASE SEE END OF THIS DOCUMENT FOR SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION|
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(1) CDT ASKS FCC TO PROTECT COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY, SCALE BACK CALEA PLANS
The FBI has taken a law intended to preserve wiretapping in new digital
networks and is using it to try to expand its surveillance capabiliities,
the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) argued in a petition filed
Thursday, March 26, with the Federal Communications Commission.
http://www.cdt.org/digi_tele/980426_fcc_calea.html
CDT urged the FCC to intervene in a dispute between telephone companies and
the FBI over the meaning of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act (CALEA). The FBI has pressured U.S. telephone companies to
build location-tracking technology into wireless phone systems, CDT said in
its petition. The telecommunications industry has also yielded to FBI
pressure to allow law enforcement to 'turn on a virtual spigot' in some
networks and get the full content of someone's communications without
adequate authority, CDT argued.
As switching systems in the nation's telephone networks age, they are being
replaced with digital equipment which the FBI can't tap using its usual
methods. Congress enacted CALEA almost four years ago in an effort to allow
law enforcement to preserve its surveillance capabilities in the era of
digital switching. The FBI and U.S. telephone equipment manufacturers and
carriers have been negotiating ever since over the issue of which changes
to the phone system should become mandatory by the October deadline for
compliance with the law. The negotiations broke down last week.
CDT asked the FCC to intervene in the implementation of CALEA 'to protect
the privacy interests of the American public' because:
* The telecommunications industry, under 'unremitting pressure from the
FBI,'
has so far agreed to turn all wireless phones into location tracking
devices. 'This capability will allow the government, on the thinnest of
grounds, to follow any of the forty million Americans who use wireless
phones as they go about their daily lives, from home to work to shopping
to friends' houses,' CDT argued.
* The telecommunications industry has also agreed, under FBI pressure, to
provide law enforcement with the entire stream of data packets from each
email or telephone call covered by a surveillance order. Since packets
contain the content of a call as well as the addressing information that
allows packets to be reassembled when they reach their destination, the
industry has essentially agreed to allow the government 'with minimal
authority' to get the full content of all a person's communications, CDT
argued. 'In an age when medical records, proprietary information,
financial data and intimate thoughts are increasingly conveyed online,
carriers should not provide the government with a stream of information
it is not authorized to receive,' the CDT petition noted.
In addition to finding that compliance with CALEA is not reasonably
achievable by the October deadline, CDT has also asked the FCC to
indefinitely delay the effect of the law while a narrower implementation
plan can be developed.
Late today the FBI filed a petition with the FCC asking the Commission to
order additional surveillance capabilities.
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(2) CDT TELLS HOUSE PANEL FOR STRONGER PRIVACY PROTECTIONS NEEDED
Evaluating how well our privacy is protected in the rapidly-changing world
of digital communications 'requires us to look freshly at old law, consider
the creation of new law, consider the role of technology in promoting
privacy, and explore new avenues of making policy,' CDT Staff Counsel
Deirdre Mulligan testified Thursday, March 26, in front of the House
Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property.
Laws and policies designed to bring Fourth Amendment protections to paper
records may no longer be applicable to the digital age, 'where many of our
most important records are not 'papers' in our 'houses' but 'bytes' stored
electronically,' Mulligan suggested. The federal government, she said,
needs to:
* Reexamine the need for limits on the disclosure and use of personal
information by private entities.
* Reconsider how the lines have been drawn between records entitled
to full Fourth Amendment protection and records that fall outside
the protection of the Fourth Amendment.
* Heighten the standard for access to transactional data.
* Create a privacy protection entity to provide expertise and
institutional memory, a forum for privacy research, exploration,
and guidance, and a source of policy recommendations on privacy
issues.
* Encourage the development and implementation of technologies that
support privacy on global information networks.
Despite calls from Mulligan and other witnesses for new privacy laws for
cyberspace, subcommittee chairman Howard Coble said he didn't expect such
legislation to be introduced this year.
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_
(3) A NOTE FROM OUR WEBMASTER
As everyone has undoubtedly noticed, a mailing list mix-up occurred
Tuesday evening when I accidentally left the approval door open to our
list. A few messages from unsubscribers slipped through, and were
multiplied to the entire list, instead of coming to me as the moderator.
These mistaken messages then generated more unwanted mail when kind-hearted
Policy Post subscribers alerted me to the problem. I slammed the door shut
early Wednesday morning to stop the flow of unwanted mail. Unfortunately, a
few more messages might still be floating around in cyberspace and might
drop by your mailbox. Please accept my apology.
-alek the webmaster
_______________________________________________________________________________
(4) SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
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(5) ABOUT THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY/CONTACTING US
The Center for Democracy and Technology is a non-profit public interest
organization based in Washington, DC. The Center's mission is to develop
and advocate public policies that advance democratic values and
constitutional civil liberties in new computer and communications
technologies.
Contacting us:
General information: info@cdt.org
World Wide Web: http://www.cdt.org/
Snail Mail: The Center for Democracy and Technology
1634 Eye Street NW * Suite 1100 * Washington, DC 20006
(v) +1.202.637.9800 * (f) +1.202.637.0968
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End Policy Post 4.7 3/27/98
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