Is anyone else in the industry weary of the debate over the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994?
Finally admitting that you can’t put the cart before the horse, the Federal Communications Commission extended the CALEA implementation date from next month to June 2000, at which time wireless telecom carriers will have to make changes to their networks so law enforcement can wiretap digital wireless phone conversations.
Industry and privacy advocates have been battling law enforcement over implementing the wiretap act. Industry complained it could not comply with the law until there was a technical standard to comply with, which is a pretty good point.
Law enforcement, however, is pushing for nine items it would like to see included in the technical standard. Herein lies the problem. Law enforcement-since it is the entity that will benefit from implementing the wiretap act-must push for some kind of compromise on the technical standard. While the world may be safer if all nine wiretap specifications were in place, time is being wasted debating which items do or do not go beyond the scope of the law. The law enforcement community should view compromise on this issue as a necessary evil just to get started on implementing the act. At this rate, by the time a compromise is reached on CALEA, carriers will be implementing third-generation systems, which could have their own technical issues to be addressed.
I’m all for getting criminals off the street and giving law enforcement the proper tools to aid it in accomplishing that goal. But this law was passed in 1994 and today we don’t seem any closer to giving law enforcement this tool. Wireless digital telephones have proliferated in the last two years. Do you think the criminals most damaging to American society are using analog technology, or do you suppose they have traded up their phones for secure digital ones, where they know their conversations are not recorded?
Even after the technical standard is resolved, other issues must be addressed before wiretaps can be implemented successfully. Law enforcement will lose a couple steps trying to figure out which of seven or so wireless carriers is providing wireless service to the suspect. Suspects using prepaid phones will present other obstacles.
In the meantime, criminals can sleep easy at night knowing their phone conversations are secure. I doubt that is what Congress had in mind when it passed the CALEA bill four years ago.
