Three top civil liberties groups - the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center - have asked the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to throw out Federal Communications Commission rules they say would let police track Internet browsing and e-mail without obtaining a proper search warrant.
Filing Thursday, the groups say the FCC's answer to a 1994 wiretap law goes too far and gives police too much surveillance power as well as the ability to track mobile phone users. The Justice Department says packet communications like the Net should be open for police eavesdropping, says Wired.
The government is due to respond to the filing in March, with oral arguments set for May 17, the magazine says.
The FCC's so-called interim standard would let law enforcement eavesdrop by way of nothing more than convincing a judge the information they hope to obtain is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation" by the agency in question, Wired says. The groups' brief says that's only too easy to do and won't protect individual privacy adequately.
They say police should be required to convince a judge a crime is actually taking place or is about to take place, and that a tap would uncover incriminating information about the crime in question.
"Law enforcement could obtain Internet transmissions without a warrant simply by directing an [easier-to-acquire] order to the telephone company carrying the packets rather than by seeking a full warrant against the Internet service provider that receives those packets," says the brief, obtained by Wired.
"The FBI is seeking surveillance capabilities that far exceed the powers law enforcement has had in the past and is entitled to under the law," EPIC General Counsel David Sobel tells Wired. "It is disappointing that the FCC resolved this issue in favor of police powers and against privacy."
