In recent years, the traditional public switched telephone network has been supplanted in many homes and organizations by Voice over Internet Protocol systems, which convey telephone conversations over computer networks—often at little or no cost to end users. Many local cable companies now offer their Internet service customers VoIP at a nominal cost to replace their home phone line and services such as Skype, which allow users to make free VoIP calls to other Skype users.
On November 14, an Federal Communications Commission amendment to the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, requiring VoIP carriers to give law enforcement wiretapping capabilities, came into effect. The amendment gives operators of VoIP networks about 18 months to comply and will require the providers to offer law enforcement real-time, remote access to digital voice services such as VoIP.
Currently, VoIP at RPI is in its infant stages and has been deployed to a handful of departments and administrators for testing. RPI’s Chief Information Officer John Kolb ’79 indicated that no plans currently exist to deploy VoIP to students, but did not rule out such a plan in future years. Furthermore, one of the primary forms of off-campus communications for students—cell phones—has had wiretapping functionality built-in from the beginning.
RPI has given its support to the American Council on Education, which has opposed the measure and sought an exemption to the rule for higher education. The ACE estimates that the cost to upgrade all college and university networks across the country will be around $7 billion, which is equivalent to a $450 tuition increase for each student. Kolb estimated that RPI’s cost of compliance will likely exceed several hundred thousand dollars.
The regulation’s application to higher education, however, is by no means clear-cut. The FCC indicated that it will issue a related finding in the next few months that details what kind of organization constitutes an Internet-based telephone carrier. Furthermore, the FCC determined in another ruling that instant messaging services are not subject to CALEA at present.
The Center for Democracy and Technology has filed an appeal in a Washington, D.C., federal appeals court challenging the FCC ruling and its efforts to force VoIP systems to behave like the public switched telephone network. They contend that it is “legally and technologically objectionable.” Organizations in opposition to the amendment to CALEA such as the American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries are also fearful of unregulated government oversight of places where discussions of controversial ideas take place.
Over the past few years, the FBI has been allowed to use National Security Letters to obtain subscriber information and communications from Internet service providers. While not unusual in that respect, the letters also disallow any judicial review of the action and prohibited the ISP from disclosing the existence of the letter. This provision of the Patriot Act was recently ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. District court in New York.
