WASHINGTON-In the continuing saga that is the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, telecom and privacy groups have appealed the technical standards the Federal Communications Commission set out in August claiming the rules are “contrary to law.”
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association joined with the Center for Democracy and Technology to file suit last week, mere days after the United States Telecom Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed similar suits. It is expected all of the suits will be combined.
“Petitioners seek relief from the Order on the grounds that it exceeds the [FCC’s] statutory authority and is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence and contrary to law,” said CTIA and CDT in papers filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
CTIA is continuing to work with law enforcement to implement CALEA, Wheeler said. “While we continue to work with the Department of Justice on the systems to implement CALEA, the courts must rule on exactly what level of surveillance should be implemented,” he said.
The FCC believes its ruling will be upheld, William Kennard said on Nov. 19.
CTIA’s action was a reversal from August when it praised the FCC on its ruling. “We are pleased that all of the additional capabilities requested by the FBI were not included in the FCC order,” Wheeler said at that time.
The FCC in August rejected privacy and industry concerns when it approved six of nine additional capabilities to industry interim technical standard implementing CALEA. The decision largely affirmed an October 1998 notice of proposed rule making.
The telecommunications industry will be required to comply with the industry interim standard by June. Carriers must abide by a revised CALEA standard including the additional capabilities by Sept. 20, 2001.
The FCC’s action in this area was triggered when industry, privacy and law enforcement could not agree on what capabilities were within the scope of CALEA. The industry believed the interim standard was sufficient while law enforcement believed it was not enough and privacy groups believed it went too far.
On the privacy side, CDT had asked the FCC to rule that the industry interim standard was deficient because it allowed wireless carriers to provide the cell site of their customers at the beginning and end of every call. CDT said this effectively turned wireless phones into tracking devices.
This location information was supposed to be available due to 911 rules on April 1, 1998, but only 3 percent of the public safety answering points have deployed what is known as wireless enhanced 911 Phase I.
Until the FCC changed the rules on Nov. 18, Phase I and Phase II E911 only had to be implemented after a carrier received a request from the PSAP and a cost-recovery mechanism was in place. Now as soon as request is received from a PSAP, a carrier must deploy Phase I.
Phasing in E911 was the result of an agreement between public-safety officials and the wireless industry in 1996. Phase I required carriers to provide PSAPs with call-back and cell-site (or base station) information when 911 is dialed.
This capability allows carriers to know where a caller is when he/she places a call and where he/she is when the call is terminated. Under CALEA, this information is to be given to law enforcement. The industry originally agreed that this was akin to a wireline phone since presumably the wireline phone location cannot change during the course of a call.
Carriers and law enforcement are not supposed to track customers but the signals bounce from cell site to cell site as a caller moves from point A to point B and privacy groups have consistently worried that this information could be used to know the exact location of a target regardless of whether he or she is on the phone.
