WASHINGTON-With a captive national audience tuned in to the first major press briefing two days after the deadly explosion of the Trans World Airlines Flight 800, FBI New York Bureau Chief James Kallstrom made an impassioned plea for congressional funding of the digital telephony bill.
It has not been determined whether sabotage or mechanical error is to blame for the New York-to-Paris jumbo jet’s fiery fall July 17 from the sky to the sea off Long Island, N.Y., killing all 230 aboard.
But when a reporter asked Kallstrom what additional measures were needed to fight terrorism, Kallstrom singled out digital telephony funding.
“You know,” Kallstrom told reporters in East Mariches, N.Y., “we’re in the information business in the FBI. And we collect information through all the traditional ways-the good interviews and information and informants and undercover operations-more and more we’re in an age of information. Electronic surveillance. You know, what are the bad guys saying to each other? Criminal conspiracies have to communicate.”
In the two years since the enactment of Communications Assistance and the Law Enforcement Act, Congress has failed to appropriate any of the $500 million to implement a bill designed to enable law enforcement to conduct wiretaps on advanced telecommunications network. The money is for reimbursing wireless and carriers that modify their systems to comply with CALEA.
Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), a former U.S. attorney, can take full credit for the FBI’s woes. Barr, suspicious about the FBI’s ability to carry out CALEA in a lawful and fiscally responsible manner, stripped CALEA funding from budget and anti-terrorism bills during the past two years.
This year is no exception, there were no monies set aside for CALEA in the fiscal 1997 Commerce appropriations bill passed by the House last week. But the legislation does include a provision that allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to shift unused federal funds to CALEA subject to reporting requirements added by Barr on the House floor.
“In 1994, the president signed-the Congress passed-the digital telephony bill, the bill to assure law enforcement continues to do wire tapping in the age of digital communications,” explained Kallstrom.
“That bill has not been funded yet. We, in law enforcement, hope the Congress takes the matter on. We know the Congress is working on it. And by right, we need to explain to them exactly why it is we need to do this.
“But I think that’s probably one area, as this changing technology affects all of us, and certainly affects law enforcement. We must keep up with technology.”
The Clinton administration asked for $100 million for CALEA for fiscal 1997, which begins Oct. 1, and cited its absence from the Commerce appropriations bill in its veto threat.