Security, Wiretapping, and the Internet

  • Authors:
  • Susan Landau

  • Affiliations:
  • Sun Microsystems

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Security and Privacy
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

Wiretaps have been used since the invention of the telegraph and have been a legal element of the U.S. law-enforcement arsenal for over a quarter century.In 1994, in keeping with law enforcement's efforts to have laws stay current with changing technologies, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).This controversial law, which mandated that digitally-switched telephone networks must be built wiretap compatible, was not easily implemented.Now, in a move that may prove dangerous to national security, the FBI is seeking to extend CALEA to Voice over IP (VoIP).In this paper, I discuss national-security risks such an extension poses.