Fergie's Tech Blog

Higher Education Fears Wiretapping Law

Jim Duffy writes on NetworkWorld:

Institutions of higher education are up in arms over an FCC ruling on wiretapping they say could cost them billions of dollars in upgrades, expose their networks to more attacks, and jeopardize rights to privacy and freedom of speech.

A petition in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia could determine if higher-education networks - and perhaps private corporate networks - will be required to allow wiretapping by law enforcement agencies as soon as next year.

Oral arguments will be heard late this week in the petition of the American Council on Education (ACE) vs. the FCC, which was submitted in mid-March to the court. The petition is part of an ongoing appeal of the FCC's Sept. 23, 2005, ruling that extends the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) wiretapping order to broadband Internet providers and "interconnected" VoIP providers next year.

The higher-education community is concerned the FCC ruling does not distinguish between public and private networks, and could potentially extend the CALEA compliance requirement to university and enterprise networks.

posted by Fergie @ 5/01/2006 01:25:00 PM