WASHINGTON-The wireless industry is giving high marks to the FBI’s new, less ambitious plan for digital wiretap capacity requirements, but legal, financial and technical problems remain.
The FBI last week estimated it will need to conduct 60,000 simultaneous wiretaps and telephone number traces to fight crime and terrorism in the near future.
“If law enforcement is to have any chance against sophisticated criminals who have come to rely on modern technology, against the drug dealers flooding our streets with narcotics, and against the violent criminals terrorizing our society, it must have the investigative tools needed to do the job,” said James Kallstrom, FBI assistant director. “One of those tools-the ability to do court-approved pen registers, trap and traces and wiretaps-is falling an inadvertent victim to galloping technology advances.”
Kallstrom, who is spearheading the implementation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, said the law does not broaden law enforcement powers. New wiretap requirements go into effect three years after being finalized.
“We think this is a much more prudent approach,” said Tim Ayers, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
Mary Madigan, director of external affairs for the Personal Communications Industry Association, agreed the revised digital wiretap capacity initiative is “definitely an improvement over the first one.”
Indeed, the October 1995 capacity requirements recommended by the FBI were criticized by industry and privacy advocates for being too big and lacking justification.
This time around, after conferring with industry, scholars, law enforcement agencies and privacy groups, the FBI drew up wiretap capacity needs based on historical data, and differentiated between wireline and wireless carriers.
Heretofore, the FBI refused to release data underlying its initial wiretap capacity needs. In changing its approach, the FBI’s estimated capacity requirements decreased but are still higher than historical experience. The FBI based capacity requirements for wireless on a market service area basis. Landline wiretap capacity estimates were calculated on a county-by-county basis.
It is unclear, however, whether FBI wireless wiretap capacity requirements apply to each market or to each carrier in the market.
Of particular interest is the FBI’s estimate of wireless wiretap growth being nearly three times that of wireline wiretaps for 1994-1998.
Despite making progress with industry on wiretap capacity, the FBI continues to struggle to get congressional funding to reimburse carriers that modify facilities to comply with CALEA. Fiscal 1997 is the first year money will be available for the FBI to implement CALEA. Congress authorized $500 million for CALEA over fiscal years 1995-1998, but FBI critics like Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) have successfully blocked funding till now.
The $100 million for CALEA this fiscal year, for example, is not in the form of direct appropriations, but is a combination of monies made available through a new fund-linked to a strict implementation plan-and the reprogramming of other appropriations.
Wireless carriers and law enforcement agencies continue to negotiate over legal and technical questions connected with the scope of wiretaps, particularly as they relate to the FBI’s desire for ongoing position location.
