FCC requires companies to redesign networks for government wiretapping

Call it Big Brother if you will, but the U.S. government is planning to peer into private computer communications, forcing companies that provide high-speed access or Internet-based telephone service to design — or redesign — their networks to accommodate surveillance. Yesterday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave broadband Internet service and VoIP eighteen months to ensure that their networks are wiretap-ready. This followed the FCC’s formal release of the order in September. Privacy advocates say law enforcement agencies already can wiretap Internet services, and they criticize the FCC for going too far by requiring businesses to devise systems to the specifications of the federal government in order to make wiretapping easier. “This is like saying, ‘Everybody has to keep their doors unlocked because the FBI might need to get in,’” says Mark Rasch, a former attorney who handled computer crime cases for the Justice Department and is now senior vice president and chief security counsel of Omaha, Nebraska-based Solutionary, a computer security consulting company. “The harm of everybody keeping their doors unlocked all the time is much greater than the benefit.”

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