WASHINGTON-Indirect digital telephony wiretap funding was approved by the House last week but not before Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) tacked on strict reporting and congressional review requirements opposed by the FBI.
“I am pleased the House unanimously passed my proposal to provide extra safeguards in the area of wiretapping,” said Barr.
“The amendment simply says that before any taxpayer money is spent on wiretapping for digital telephony technology, the FBI must advise the Congress and withhold expenditures for 60 days while those in the House and Senate review their proposal,” he said. “In the post-Waco and Ruby Ridge era, the American public is entitled to a greater degree of federal law enforcement accountability.”
The funding provision, included in a $29.5 billion Commerce appropriations bill for fiscal 1997 that passed by a 246-179 margin, allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to transfer unspent monies to a new Department of Justice Telecommunications Carrier Compliance Fund.
The fund will be used to reimburse wireless and wireline carriers that modify networks in keeping with the 1994 digital telephony bill, known officially as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA.
CALEA has not received any of the $500 million authorized for the bill’s implementation, owing largely to Barr’s criticism about the lack of specificity and accountability as to how funds are spent.
Added opposition has come from the American Civil Liberties Union, which accused lawmakers of setting up “a slush fund to use unexpended law enforcement and intelligence monies to fund a program forcing phone companies to change technology so government can spy on their customers.”
“In the post-Waco and Ruby Ridge era, the American public
is entitled to a greater degree
of federal law enforcement accountability.”
President Clinton sought $100 million for CALEA in fiscal 1997, and specifically noted its omission from the Commerce spending bill in threatening to veto it.
The wireless telecommunications industry, for its part, has raised similar concerns. But the industry also wants CALEA funded so wireless carriers can be paid back for network wiretap changes. Carriers have to comply with capability requirements by 1998, but cannot be forced to expand system wiretap capacity if CALEA funds are unavailable.
Barr, a former U.S. attorney appointed by President Reagan and a member of the National Rifle Association, has not made that easy.
Before the CALEA fund gets a cent, the FBI must submit to Congress a detailed implementation plan that calls for an explanation about how the proposed wiretap changes differ from the status quo; an accounting of the actual and maximum number of simultaneous surveillances /intercepts that law enforcement agencies expect to perform and the historical baseline electronic surveillance activity on which the proposed capacity requirements are based; a detailed county by county listing of proposed actual and maximum capacity requirements; the proposed network switch and other assistance capability features requested by law enforcement that would be required to be installed by telecommunications carriers; a complete estimate of costs for developing and deploying new wiretap features and training telecommunications employees; and an annual report from the U.S. attorney general on how the money was spent.
The FBI said the implementation plan is inconsistent with CALEA and may violate the statute. The focus now shifts to the Senate, where the FBI hopes to win direct appropriations when the Commerce appropriations bill is taken up.
The Commerce spending bill approved by the House freezes the Federal Communications Commission’s budget for fiscal 1997 at its current $185.6 million level, throwing the move of the agency headquarters across town to The Portals in limbo.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration received $46.7 million, just about $40 million less than the amount sought by the White House.
