The Government Wants to Tap Your Internet Calls
By Jayne Lyn Stahl huffingtonpost.com blogger
Feb 14, 2007
Over the past several months, the FCC and Justice Department have been working overtime, and fighting hard to tap not only your land line phone and cell phone, but to tap Internet calls, as well.
Effective in May, those who provide “voice transmission” and broadband services will have to ensure that their equipment that is wiretap-ready, and accessible to your local police force and the FBI. The new legislation is modeled after the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement, or CALEA, which was designed primarily to facilitate wiretapping of mobile phones. This new legislation is intended to expand governmental surveillance powers to cover companies like Vonage, so the progression evolves thus: First we can tap Ma Bell, then Cingular Wireless, then Yahoo emails, then Vonage.