In what could prove alarming enough for Internet privacy advocates in and out of adult entertainment, the Federal Communications Commission wants Internet telephony to allow for law enforcement wiretaps the same as conventional telephony does under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).
In an Aug. 4 announcement, the FCC said they began examining "the appropriate legal and policy framework for implementing [CALEA], particularly regarding broadband access and services." The regulatory body said it wants to guarantee law enforcement has all CALEA-authorized resources to fight crime and support homeland security, including wiretap access for Internet telephone calls if and when necessary.
But the FCC also said they understand law enforcement's needs "must be balanced with the competing policies of not impeding the development of new communications services and technologies and protecting consumer privacy."
FCC chairman Michael Powell, who has proven a staunch advocate of minimal regulation of Internet telephony, told reporters his commission supports law enforcement and wants them to have all electronic surveillance capabilities feasible; but he warned against adding onerous new regulations on Internet telephony, known formally as Voice-over Internet Protocol, which he calls a "vibrant new service."
Electronic Privacy Information Center general counsel David Sobel said in a statement that allowing law enforcement-rooted Internet telephony wiretaps holds too much potential for law enforcement to intercept data packets from those other than the intended law enforcement subjects. EPIC opposed the CALEA legislation, saying the government failed to justify the original $500 million appropriation required to enforce it.
Indeed, Sobel and his group have a considerably weighty jurisprudential precedent on their side. Writing in 1928, in Olmstead v. United States, then-Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said privacy invasion through telephony is "far greater" than mail tampering.
"Whenever a telephone line is tapped," Brandeis wrote, "privacy of the persons at both ends of the line is invaded, and all conversations between them upon any subject – and although proper, confidential, and privileged – may be overheard. Moreover, the tapping of one man's telephone line involves the tapping of the telephone of every other person whom he may call, or who may call him. As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wire tapping."
