From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Phone Tapping Plan Announced
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 18:39:36 GMT

From: PENN@MITLNS.MIT.EDU (steve penn 26-567, 253-1521 Remember Our Humanity; Science is Not Neutral; MIT War Research Kills.)

Included below is an article from the New Liberation News Service
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NLNS  Packet 2.7b  -  24 March 1992
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Phone Tapping Plan Announced
Law Enforcement Agencies Would Have Easier Access
The Daily Texan and AP via Peacenet's "media.issues" conference

WASHINGTON 3/6/92--The Bush administration wants you to pay a little 
more for telephone service to make it easier for the FBI or local police to 
listen in on the conversations of suspected criminals.
        The Justice Department is circulating a proposal in Congress that 
would force telephone companies to install state-of-the-art technology to 
accommodate official wiretaps. And it would authorize the Federal 
Communications Commission to grant telephone companies rate increases 
to defray the cost.
        A copy of the legislation was obtained by The Associated Press.
        Attorney General William Barr discussed the proposal last week with 
Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., chairman of the Senate Commerce 
Committee, which oversees the FCC according to congressional sources 
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
        Justice Department spokesman Paul McNulty refused to comment on 
the proposal.
        The bill was drafted by the FBI and the Justice Department in response 
to dramatic changes in telephone technology that make it difficult for 
traditional wiretapping methods to pick up conversations between two 
parties on a telephone line.
        The Justice Department's draft proposal states that the widespread use 
of digital transmission, fiber optics and other technologies "make it 
increasingly difficult for government agencies to implement lawful orders 
or authorizations to intercept communications in order to enforce the laws 
and protect the national security."          
	The FBI has already asked Congress for $26.6 million in its 1993 
fiscal year budget to help finance a five-year research effort to help keep 
pace with the changes in telephone technology.
        With the new technology that is being installed nationwide, police can 
no longer go to a telephone switching center and put wiretap equipment on 
a designated lines.
        The advent of so-called digital transmission means that conversations 
are broken into bits of information and sent over phone lines and put back 
together at the end of the wire.
        The bill would give the FCC 180 days to devise rules and standards for 
telephone companies to give law enforcement agencies access to 
conversations for court-ordered wiretapping.
        The attorney general would be empowered to require that part of the 
rulemaking proceedings would be closed to the public, to protect the 
security of eavesdropping techniques used by law enforcement.
        Phone companies would have 180 days to make the necessary changes 
once the FCC issues the regulations.
        The bill would prohibit telephone companies and private exchanges 
from using equipment that doesn't comply with the new FCC technology 
standards.         
	It would give the attorney general power to seek court injunctions 
against companies that violate the regulations and collect civil penalties of 
$10,000 a day.
        It also would give the FCC the power to raise telephone rates under its 
jurisdiction to reimburse carriers. The FCC sets interstate long distance 
rates and a monthly end-user charge--currently $2.50--that subscribers pay 
to be connected to the nationwide telephone network.
        Telephone companies will want to examine the proposal to determine 
its impact on costs, security of phone lines and the 180-day deadline for 
implementing the changes, said James Sylvester, director of infrastructure 
and privacy for Bell Atlantic.
        Though no cost estimates were made available, Sylvester estimated it 
could cost companies millions of dollars to make the required changes. But 
rate hikes for individual customers would probably be quite small, he said.  
	
Note from: Anthony Whitworth 
Subject: Paying for Phone Taps
Forwarded to Peacenet via Compuserve 
	There is a bill before congress drafted by the FBI and Justice 
Department that would direct the FCC to specify hardware and software 
attachments to all commerical and *private* telephone exchanges to allow 
easy wire tapping.  The Bush administration is a proponent of this bill (no 
surprise).  The bill specifies fines of up to $10k per day to businesses that do 
not comply with the FCC rules.
	. . .As most of you know, we at a junction where privacy can increase 
if we defend it now.  Not even the ACLU is coming out for increasing 
privacy of communication (their position is that the taps must not allow 
excess data access).  At best, the FCC's easy-wiretapping requirements 
would be a hinderance to commerce . . . At worst, roving wiretaps could 
become easier (this is where thousands of lines are scanned with speaker-
recognition equipment to catch a particular person using any phone in a 
city).
	[our scientific expert in wiretaps at MIT does not believe such taps 
are possible at this point- nlns ed.]

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