A federal appeals court said that it was bound to accept the Federal Communications Commission’s reasonable ruling that broadband Internet access and Voice over Internet Protocol service providers should be subject to the digital wiretap act.
“The FCC’s interpretation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act represents `a reasonable policy choice,”‘ wrote Judge David Sentelle. “We cannot set aside the commission’s reasonable interpretation of CALEA in favor of an alternatively plausible (or even better) one.”
Congress passed CALEA just as the use of mobile telephony was taking off, and law enforcement began having trouble wiretapping people who used cellular phones. CALEA passed to allow law enforcement to continue surveillance capabilities even as technology changed.
However, provisions were put in place to exempt information services. The American Council on Education argued VoIP and broadband are information services. But the D.C. circuit court agreed with the FCC that since telecommunications services are used in the provision of broadband Internet access services and VoIP as a substantial replacement for voice telephony, they had to comply with CALEA.
