The federal wiretap law was enacted in 1968, and has undergone major revisions since then as Congress has tried to keep pace with changing technology. Congress has tried to balance the often competing interests of law enforcement, privacy rights, and technological innovation.
In 1994, Congress adopted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA, or the digital telephony law). CALEA was intended to preserve but not expand law enforcement wiretapping capabilities by requiring telephone companies to design their systems to ensure a certain basic level of government access. But the FBI has tried to use the law to expand its capabilities, turning wireless phones into tracking devices, requiring phone companies to collect specific signaling information for the convenience of the government, and allowing interception of packet communications without privacy protections.
In 2004, the FBI began pushing to extend CALEA to packet services that carry voice over the Internet, often referred to as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). See CDT's VoIP Interception page.
Coalition Seeks Rehearing on Wiretap Mandates for VOIP, Broadband Internet - Civil liberties groups, educational networks and others concerned about the future of the Internet, led by CDT, have asked a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling upholding the FCC's August 2005 decision to extend wiretap design mandates to the Internet. The brief argues that a panel, split 2-1, misread the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). July 31, 2006
Share this articleCDT Brief Challenges Warrantless Phone Call Interception - CDT and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a "friend of the court" brief today arguing that the government must get a warrant to collect the content of a telephone call, even if that content comes from digits dialed on a phone keypad. A federal court in Texas denied the government's attempt to use a "pen register" to obtain call content, but the government is seeking reconsideration of that denial and the court invited EFF and CDT to file a brief addressing the appropriate standards for interception of keypad input such as bank account numbers and voicemail passwords. June 30, 2006
Share this articleCourt Ruling Threatens Civil Liberties, Technology Innovation - A federal appeals court today ruled 2-1 that telephone regulators and the FBI can control the design of Internet services in order to make government wiretapping easier. The decision, which is damaging both to civil liberties and technology innovation, came in a case in which CDT joined with a coalition of universities, libraries, public interest groups and Internet companies to oppose an August 2005 ruling by the Federal Communications Commission. In that ruling, the FCC extended to the Internet the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), a law Congress intended to apply only to the telephone network. June 09, 2006
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