more on VoIP CALEA (was: [IP] FCC not Schizo at all)

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Date: August 9, 2005 11:14:51 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: lauren@vortex.com
Subject: Re: VoIP CALEA (was: [IP] FCC not Schizo at all)


> From: hugh crawford <hugh@hughcrawford.com>
> Date: August 8, 2005 11:31:02 PM EDT
> Subject: FCC not Schizo at all
> ...
> It says nothing of the kind. Skyp , Vonage , et al have no wires ,
> can't "rewire" anything and don't own the networks that they run on.

Dave,

Actually, the FCC summary regarding VoIP and CALEA seems quite clear
about which service providers are covered.  It speaks to the issue of
"interconnected VoIP providers" -- and defines these as those
systems that can make or receive calls with the public switched
telephone network.  Such systems must have physical interface points
where they make their connections to the public phone network.  Even
if wiretaps were not provided at the VoIP data level, they could be
provided via those interfaces (and only for calls using those
interfaces) *if* the CALEA requirement only applies to calls that
actually were terminating on the switched network, and not calls
that were purely Internet-based between all parties.  This aspect of
the FCC's statement on VoIP and CALEA is not currently clear.

Examples of VoIP systems that would obviously fall under this definition
would be both Skype and Vonage.  Examples of VoIP systems that
would *not* fall into that covered category would be "Speak Freely,"
Microsoft "NetMeeting," and other purely PC-to-PC applications that
don't themselves interface to the switched telephone network.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@pfir.org or lauren@vortex.com or lauren@eepi.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
  - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, EEPI
  - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative - http://www.eepi.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com



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