ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 13, Number 49
July 20, 2004

In This Issue: OPPOSE WIRETAPPING THE INTERNET

We are writing you to urge you to call your Senator, if he or she is on the Senate Commerce Committee (see below), and ask your Senator to oppose any amendments to S. 2281, introduced by Senator John Sununu (R-NH), that would extend CALEA's (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement) wiretap mandates to Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and Internet services. We understand that several Senators are planning amendments that would extend the wiretap design requirements of CALEA to VOIP services. Please note that Sen. Sununu's bill, as introduced, does not contain these provisions; they would be added by amendment.

On Thursday, July 22, the Senate Commerce Committee will consider whether to impose mandates to require VOIP services to build various capabilities into their switches so that Internet phone calls can be easily wiretapped. This has profound implications for the future of the Internet. 

BACKGROUND
CALEA is the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994. It required traditional phone companies to build various capabilities into their switches so phone calls can be easily wiretapped.  When Congress passed CALEA, it explicitly excluded the Internet from the scope of these surveillance mandates. The FBI used the law to get capabilities it never used to have in the traditional phone system, and CALEA has proven to be a costly design mandate.  CALEA is especially ill-suited to the Internet. Extending CALEA to VOIP and the Internet would be bad for innovation, cost, privacy and security.

VOIP is a new technology that uses the Internet for voice communications, offering significant savings on long distance calls and allowing services to be combined in innovative ways. Many libraries are finding VOIP to be an excellent way to reduce costs.

Law enforcement should be able to intercept Internet communications with an appropriate court order.  In fact, such communications can already be "tapped" and service providers are voluntarily cooperating with the FBI.  CALEA, however, allows the FBI to actually control the design of the technology, and could require libraries to reengineer their systems and services -- at their own cost -- to be "CALEA compliant". 

For more information on the potential impact of CALEA on libraries, see the Office For Information Technology Policy's June, 2004 issue brief:
www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washevents/woannual/CALEA.pdf 

For information on contacting your Senator, go to capwiz.com/ala/dbq/officials/directory/directory.dbq?command=congdir

Members of the Senate Commerce Committee:

Sen. John McCain (R AZ) 
Sen. Ted Stevens (R AK)
Sen. Conrad Burns (R MT)
Sen. Trent Lott (R MS)
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R TX)
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R ME)
Sen. Sam Brownback (R KS)
Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R OR)
Sen. Peter G. Fitzgerald (R IL)
Sen. John Ensign (R NV)
Sen. George Allen (R VA)
Sen. John E. Sununu (R NH) 
	
Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D SC)
Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D HI)
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D WV)
Sen. John F. Kerry (D MA)
Sen. John B. Breaux (D LA)
Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D ND)
Sen. Ron Wyden (D OR)
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D CA)
Sen. Bill Nelson (D FL)
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D WA)
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D NJ)




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ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Carol Ashworth, Camille Bowman, Don Essex, Joshua Farrelman, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.