CALEA

While doing some research this morning, I came across the name of the CALEA Consultant for the DOJ, FBI, and DEA. (I'm now trying to get a phone or email). Any way, CALEA was brought up in the Brand-X case. Here's the summary of the brief FYI:

Law Enforcement advanced the theory that Internet Access service is a “telecommunications service,” or at least contains a “telecommunications service” that implicates the CALEA statute. CALEA could cover Internet access, Law Enforcement reasoned, without triggering the full burden of other regulatory mandates promulgated under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (“Title II”) because the Commission could streamline those burdens using several regulatory tools, including forbearance, rule waivers, extensions of time, and self-certifications of compliance. Although cable operators are generally not subject to Title II, Law Enforcement remarked that CALEA already applies expressly to cable operators, as well as electric utilities and other utilities, to the extent those entities engage in telecommunications services. Law Enforcement also stated its belief that the Commission’s Cable Modem Declaratory Ruling, which classifies Internet access as a pure information service, suffers from statutory interpretation problems and directly threatens CALEA. Moreover, Law Enforcement explained that CALEA’s importance to national security warrants special treatment of the statute in the Commission’spending broadband Internet access proceedings.

When VoIP is involved, especially SIP, a mediation box is your friend, because too many pieces of the VOIP Network have pieces and/or access to the call stream. (Remember SIP is not client-server based like cable voice which is usually MGCP. SIP only needs the server for call start.)

When a data stream is subpoenaed, it is slightly easier to grab that data and VPN it to the FBI. However, you have to do this without changing the IP Address of the end-user under scrutiny and without him or any of your employees knowing that this is happening.