WASHINGTON-Imagine for a moment law enforcement is able to convince the Federal Communications Commission to approve all the items it is asking for to implement the digital wiretap act. And, then imagine you are a law enforcement officer wishing to set up a wiretap on a suspected criminal. It should be easy, right? Get the court order, serve it and set up the wiretap.
Wrong.
In the emerging days of competition and with the deployment of number portability, it increasingly is becoming difficult for law enforcement to know which telecom carrier should be served the wiretap subpoena.
In the old days, law enforcement could get one court order and serve it on Ma Bell. Today and increasingly in the future, multiple orders may be necessary. Law enforcement says it can live with that, but sometimes officers are unable to find out which or how many, court orders they will need.
The telephone number is the necessary element in all of this. Once law enforcement has determined the telephone number for the person they want to tap (or whose records they want retrieved), then law enforcement sometimes can identify which carrier-wireline or wireless-to contact by referring to the Local Exchange Routing Guide. The LERG lists all of the exchanges, known as NXXs to the telecommunications industry, and which company uses them.
The problem of number portability is more acute in the wireline world because wireless carriers are not yet porting customers. Portability refers to telephone subscribers keeping their telephone number when switching service providers. The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau last week delayed the implementation of wireless number portability until March 31, 2000.
With the advent of number portability and number pooling, law enforcement may have a more difficult time figuring out which carrier services their target because the user may have ported his phone number to a different provider.
Law enforcement’s problem with wireless is the amount of competition in the industry. “Some houses have two or maybe even three wireless phones. All from different carriers,” said one law enforcement officer.
This has been an emerging problem since the days of divestiture but has become more noticeable with the advent of local competition and the proliferation of wireless technologies. Long-distance carrier information is necessary to obtain calling records.
Interim solutions
An interim solution recently has been deployed in the Midwest and Southwest ,known as the integrated voice response unit, which is being implemented by Lockheed Martin IMS. This allows law enforcement to call a special database, and with a personal identification number, find out which carrier serves which number.
The security of using a PIN caused some concern to Jerry O’Brien, senior director of legal and regulatory affairs for Omnipoint Communications Inc., at a recent meeting of the North American Numbering Council.
At the meeting, O’Brien was concerned that using a PIN number would not provide enough security. “The security of that [IVR] database is paramount. You can’t have someone hack into the database,” he said.
Who should pay?
Cost also must be addressed before integrated voice response units can be deployed nationwide.
The database, in its current rudimentary form, is being funded by the limited liability corporations, including Ameritech Corp., GTE Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., but other telephone companies are not as enthusiastic about funding a program they see as a by-product of a government-mandate. “This is a law enforcement issue that the government should pay for. I am against carriers paying for something that is decreed by the government,” O’Brien said.
With the IVR database, law enforcement would like certain upgrades and some think the carriers should pay for them and continue to pay to maintain the database. One of the upgrades would allow access to the IVR through a terminal rather than a telephone, which would cut down on the time it takes to get the carrier information. Carriers, such as Omnipoint Communications, don’t want to pay for the database or any upgrades until mandated to do so.
Such a mandate does not appear to be forthcoming. A recent meeting on IVR between Lockheed Martin IMS officials and law enforcement originally was intended to include FCC officials, but for unknown reasons, no one at the FCC attended the meeting. Additionally, it does not appear the FCC officially is aware of the problems caused by portability or the possible IVR solution.
O’Brien thinks that is the first step. “The Department of Justice, the FBI and the [FCC] need to get together and decide what is legal … There is protection of privacy. Carriers are responsible for protecting the privacy [of their customers],” he said.
How to track prepaid users
Another potential problem for law enforcement are prepaid wireless customers, O’Brien said, who buy coupons for $50 to $200 for a certain number of minutes but don’t always provide their correct name or address. “They have a phone number but we don’t know where they are. We know where the phone is. This doesn’t mean that anything illegal is happening,” he said.
