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Civil Liberty Activists Denounce Web Phone Taps

A broad group of civil liberty groups, education groups and a leading technology company says the U.S. has improperly applied telephone-era rules to a new generation of internet services. But the Bush Administration is defending new federal rules which make it easier for police, and the FBI, to monitor Internet phone calls.

The FCC determined that providers of Internet phone service and broadband services must ensure their equipment can accommodate police wiretaps under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA. The new rules go into effect in May 2007. The 1994 law was originally aimed at ensuring court-ordered wiretaps could be placed on wireless phones.

Critics say the new FCC rules are too broad and inconsistent with the intent of Congress when it passed the 1994 law, which excluded categories of companies described as information services. Lawyers were expected to argue last week over the Federal Communications Commission regulations before a three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia.