FCC Wiretap Rules Delight FBI, Disappoint Critics By David Lawsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission Friday gave the FBI new authority to tap digital and wireless phones, delighting the Justice Department and bitterly disappointing privacy advocates and local phone companies.

FCC Chairman William Kennard declared his agency's actions ''will help ensure that law enforcement has the most up-to-date technology to fight crime.''

Traditional wiretap techniques do not work with digital technology, which would be impenetrable without assistance from the phone companies. The question has been how far phone companies should go in assisting law enforcement.

The new rules force phone companies to turn over information so that law enforcement authorities can determine the rough location of cell phone callers and gather other kinds of detailed information.

Attorney General Janet Reno said the new rules carry out a 1994 law preserving law enforcement's ability to wiretap in the digital age, but privacy advocates said the decision expands government surveillance into new areas.

Local phone companies said the new rules go beyond the requirements of the law and would be expensive and technically difficult to implement.

The new law permits law enforcement to use the power of digital technology to locate cell phone callers and gather new kinds of technical information from phone calls -- when a judge permits it.

FBI Director Louis Freeh called the decision ``an extremely important and positive public safety ruling,'' adding that it ''goes a long way to balance public safety, privacy and the needs of telecommunications carriers to remain competitive.''

But the Center for Democracy and Technology, a high-tech civil liberties group, said the decision was lopsided in favor of the FBI and law enforcement, far from what the group had expected when the 1994 law was passed.

``We thought that we had achieved a balanced statute when it passed,'' said Jim Dempsey, senior staff counsel for the center. ''We took at face value the assurances of the FBI that this statute would be used only to preserve and not enhance surveillance power.''

Dempsey said that did not happen. ``The FBI violated the spirit of that deal,'' he said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Telephone Association, representing 1,200 local phone companies including the Bell companies, agreed the new rules were far too expansive.

``They go beyond what the law calls for,'' said David Bolger. He said phone companies would seek an extension of a Sept. 30, 2001, deadline to carry out the rules, because they imposed burdensome costs and were technically difficult to meet.

The FCC decision gives police agencies with court permission the right to obtain the locations of the cells, or local antennas, that people use to make wireless phone calls.

Critics say that is the first step toward identifying the location of cell phones, something they predict the government will seek when that technology becomes cheap and available.

But an FCC official said in an interview that it was desirable to know location.

``If a child were kidnapped, wouldn't you want (law enforcement) to know the location where a (ransom) call was made?'' said the official.

The official added that police agencies have always known the location of telephones, and said: ``What we have done is provide them the same capability in the wireless world,'' where people are able to move around while making calls.

Under the order, police agencies may listen to all parties in a conference call initiated by a court-ordered target of surveillance, even when the person targeted is no longer part of the conversation.

Government agencies that cannot get permission to wiretap, or do not seek it, sometimes convince a judge to let them record telephone numbers sent and received on an instrument.

********************* The new FCC order changes things so that any numbers punched into a phone during a conversation are recorded. A person entering credit card or other private codes would also have that information recorded. *********************Emphasis added !

The FCC said law enforcement would ignore such information. But Dempsey said: ``The FBI has convinced the commission to give it more information than it ever had before.''

The FCC issued a press release summarizing the new rules, but the rules themselves will not be released until next week, an FCC spokeswoman said.

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-- Rickjohn (rickjohn1@yahoo.com), August 28, 1999

Answers

Any criminal with half a brain will know about this and avoid it entirely. Money lauderers, drug traffickers, terrorists etc. are very sophisticated.

The purpose of these rules is to make one more incremental step towards a national surveillance state. It is about political control, not crime.

A simple Yagi directional antenna can easily be made for the 900 Mhz cellphone range. It can be pointed at the antenna of choice, fooling the tracking technology. Add this to the ease with which the cellphone's power could be boosted, increasing its range, and a 'criminal' can use it to throw the FBI far off track.

We are reaching the stage where average citizens will be forced to violate the law simply to protect themselves from increasingly criminal, oppressive government agencies. Waco was just the beginning.

Especially insulting and offensive is the idea that our freedom and rights have to be "balanced" by giving unaccountable power to an agency that has a proven history of lies, extrajudicial murders, and civil rights violations of political dissenters.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), August 28, 1999.

Welcome to the New Amerikan Gestapo.

Soon we will see the Clintonista SS make it's appearance, and folks like me who cherish individual liberty are going to start "dissapearing" in the night...or wiped out in sensationalized assaults by the New SS ala Waco.

Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it.

We stupid Americans have forgotten history.

Now the wolves are about to shed their wool overcoats.

-- INVAR (gundark@sw.net), August 28, 1999.

Americans haven't forgotten history, just stupid americans like you INVAR, who feel the need to repeat history because you didn't pay good enough attention the first time. Or maybe your desire to repeat history is just because you want to 'kill a few commies'.

-- (INVAR@the meek.com), August 28, 1999.

Hey you!

I've been assigned as the driver who has to come by and pick you all up and take you to the NWO "reeducation camp". Please have your bags packed and ready to go soon, please. I've got a bunch of you to pick up! And only one carry on bag allowed per doomer. You won't be needing it for long....we've tested the ovens....they're Y2K OK!!

BWAAAAAHAHAAHHAHA I'm coming for you.....with a white bus....

-- Driver (NWO@the.bus), August 28, 1999.

Mr. Meek, you commie-pinko-Socialist bastard-

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

I haven't forgotten histoy at all. I study it.

You on the other hand are either trying to rewrite, dicount or are ignorant of history, as proof of your imbecillic assertions in your post.

I spit on your like.

Don't tread on me.

-- INVAR (gundark@sw.net), August 28, 1999.

I am reminded of an article posted to the FREE REPUBLIC Website several years ago along the lines of The Clintons' Jackbooted Liberalism, or perhaps 'Jackbooted Liberals' or some such...

Article predicted MASSIVE crackdown on Civil Liberties, and that Clinton would get away with it because he is a Leftist, and the Left has been traditionally the guardian of Civil Liberties. Only Nat Hentoff, and perhaps Christopher Hitchens, are Leftists who have the integrity to raise an Alarm about this administration.

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), August 28, 1999.

Meek: you"re an idiot. Are you stupid or just ignorant?

"Paranoia is merely a heightened sense of awareness."
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not really out to get you."

-- A (A@AisA.com), August 28, 1999.

It's a myth that the left is any more protective of civil liberties than the right.
Well maybe that's not quite accurate -- the left converts privileges into statute rights, and is very protective of its legislated rights.

Neither left nor right is protective of the constitutionally recognized rights. (Note: the Constitution does not GRANT rights; it merely RECOGNIZES previously existing rights. That has been turned on its head in modern times.)

It is a sad commentary on our times that most of you reading this will say themselves, "What...?" (Clueless)

-- A (A@AisA.com), August 28, 1999.

Here's an interesting quote about our civil liberties. I found it today at freerepublic.com, on a thread about how George Bush Jr. recently made a statement that "people should be ALLOWED to own a gun." The consensus was that "Dubya" Bush was "Clinton Lite." (quote:) The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively. - Walter Lippmann

The Constitution says it, I believe it, and that settles it!

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), August 28, 1999.

>>>"The Constitution says it, I believe it, and that settles it! "<<<

Amen. Except that according to the media, the Government and the brainwashed American dolt, "Your INTERPRETATION of the Constitution is extremist and wrong "- the Founders were slave owners, which negates the whole document....unless you're a minority Liberal with rights to upkeep for the furtherance of a political career.

Plus:

The Constitution does not allow for the private ownership of guns, only for government regulated militias.....

Freedom of speech is not provided for Conservative, right-wing Christians who spew hate from their pulpits because their beliefs are too extreme and stoic.

The Constitution did not provide the right to free health care.

And the Constitution is just a document that extremist patriots and hate-mongers use to justify their dangerous beliefs.

The Constitution is a LIVING document that needs to change with the times.

"The Constitution is an imperfect document....but we will fix it" -- Justice Thurgood Marshall

The above bullshit is now accepted reality for most braindead Americans.

So just because we believe it because we read it plainly, the Orwellian doublespeak of today also transpires to "meaningspeak" when reading documents or statements.

"Well that all depends.....it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." -William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, President of these United States of America.

-- INVAR (gundark@sw.net), August 28, 1999.

The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. Note the period on the end of that sentence.

It will not be long before this socialist corruption is swept away; every road has it's turning.

Great Thurgood Marshall quote by the way. Says it all. "America is sick and wrong, but know better than 200 years of unparalleled freedom and opportunity." What arrogance! The worst part is how racial justice is equated with socialist wealth-resdistribution schemes - that turns my stomach, and it ought to have people of color up in arms. A shame, that they're falling for it.

We've got to ignore the socialist race-baiting and continue to educate ourselves and eachother in the legal foundation of the Republic.

Liberty

-- Liberty (liberty@theready.now), August 28, 1999.

While we bicker amongst ourselves (still) more heavy handed rules and regulations now allow the Feds to "spy" on something as benign as a cell phone call. Big Brother and his Police State BS is creeping up on us and we are too busy swearing at each other to notice.

Pity!

-- Irving (Irving@privacy.net), August 28, 1999.