EavesdroppingFBI seeking wiretap-ready Web
As communications have changed in recent years from the traditional telephone system to the Internet, the FBI has found itself facing greater difficulty in carrying out surveillance operations; the agency is asking Internet companies not to oppose a coming proposal which would require them to provide a surveillance backdoor
As communications have changed in recent years from the traditional telephone system to the Internet, the FBI has found itself facing greater difficulty in carrying out surveillance operations. Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone calling services, such as Skype, Web-based e-mail services, and communication through the various social media has been increasing in use, and are currently not required to provide assistance to law enforcement in the manner that the “old” telephone system was expected to do.
The FBI refers to the problem as the “Going Dark” issue — the increasing inability to legally conduct communication surveillance. In an effort to solve the problem, the agency has begun asking Internet companies such as Microsoft to Yahoo, Google, and Facebook not to oppose a coming proposal which would require them to provide a surveillance backdoor.
The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted proposed legislation which, it maintains, would provide the best solution to the problem by allowing Internet-based communication services such as those mentioned earlier alter the code of their products to make them wiretap friendly.
Accoding to a report in Cnet, an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI draft said: “If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding.” A second industry source told Cnet that the requirement would apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users was exceeded.
The FBI initiative would extend the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, originally written into law in 1994 and which currently applies to telecommunication companies, not Web providers. CALEA was last extended in 2004, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) extended it to include broadband companies.
Augmenting the FBI legislative efforts, the FCC is considering re-interpreting CALEA to require that products that allow video or voice chat over the Internet, including Skype, Google Hangouts, and X-Box Live, include backdoors to assist the FBI with its Going Dark program.
Steve Bock, president of Colorado-based Subsentio, a company selling CALEA compliance products, said another option that would be for providers to “supply the government with proprietary information to decode information” obtained through a wiretap or other type of lawful interception, rather than “provide a complex system for converting the information into an industry standard format.”
A representative for the FBI told Cnet that there are significant challenges the FBI faces in “the accomplishment of our diverse mission. These include those that result from the advent of rapidly changing technology. A growing gap exists between the statutory authority of law enforcement to intercept electronic communications pursuant to court order and our practical ability to intercept those communications. The FBI believes that if this gap continues to grow, there is a very real risk of the government ‘going dark,’ resulting in an increased risk to national security and public safety.”
