Wednesday, August 16, 2000

Wiretapping Law Curtailed -- 9:31 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to this News.com article, a Federal judge struck down portions of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which would have greatly increased the amount of information and the ease of getting that information via wiretapping and other technologies for law enforcement. This is perhaps the most interesting bit for computer-types:

One of the most controversial--and ambiguous--pieces of the proposed regulations has dealt with how much information a law enforcement agency can extract from "packet switched" information such as email, Internet voice calls or other Net data transmissions.

The FCC had proposed giving the FBI and other authorities access to this information even when relatively little evidence had been presented that a target was involved in a crime . . .

Privacy groups argued that giving law enforcement access to the packets without getting a full judge's order could open individuals to privacy violations by police and be an expansion of existing wiretap laws. The court agreed, saying that police must get a court order to win access to Net packets instead of simply allowing a prosecutor or law enforcement agency to ask carriers for the access.

I assume this means that the FBI won't just be able to stroll into an ISP and demand that Carnivore be placed online. Forcing law enforcement to get a court order is A Good Thing, and will prevent abuse. Good thing this judge had more common sense than the FCC. Thanks Ars Technica

News for 08/16/2000

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