Broader Wiretap Rule Draws Resistance

Broader Wiretap Rule
Draws Resistance

Companies and Universities
Cite Costs if Surveillance Expands
Beyond Phone, Cable to Web
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN, AMY SCHATZ and ROBERT BLOCK
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 29, 2005; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- When the cable industry's research consortium's first attempt to make its systems more compatible with FBI eavesdropping failed to win government approval, it asked the FBI for suggestions. The industry not only got them but implemented them fully, winning unusual public thanks from the bureau along the way.

Today, the industry faces the prospect of having to re-engineer itself again, due to a recent Federal Communications Commission decision extending the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or Calea, to Internet traffic as well as phone calls. The act, which became law in 1994, requires companies to make it easier for the government to listen to phone calls carried on their lines.

The cable group's efforts to craft technical standards for the government show how U.S. corporations have helped with law enforcement. But companies are chafing both at the cost to comply with requests and increasing demands by government officials to have a seat at the table as engineers invent technologies.

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