It's anyone's guess why the federal government wants easy-access surveillance to all Internet traffic. What is irrefutable, however, is that the Federal Communication Commission's extension of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act is the first big step toward regulating the last great bastion of free speech and innovation.
For more than a decade, the Internet has evolved as a conduit for free flows of information, collaboration and technological innovation. New programs, websites, blogs and communications tools were designed under this premise of unfettered access. The result has been the innovative use of the Internet as a forum for open, uncensored discussions, political organizing, publicizing events and advertising products on a massive scale.
Not all of the material out there may be socially or politically palatable, but the advantages derived from a full exercise of first amendment rights far outweigh the consequences of a jacked up FBI acting as the web's Big Brother. If you've worked for the government, then you know how careful you must be about e-mail and IM content. The idea of having second thoughts about writing something over IM because someone might be watching is a frightening prospect.
To be fair, the new interpretation of CALEA to extend the original law to the Internet does not give the government the green light to tap connections when and where it pleases, but it lays some groundwork that is difficult to explain otherwise.
When former President Bill Clinton signed CALEA, it applied only to making it easier for law enforcement to wiretap digital telephone networks. As Chris Cramer, Duke's information technology security officer, notes, "It is a fairly dramatic stretch to say that CALEA covers Internet traffic." Especially considering the Internet existed when CALEA was passed.
Even more interesting is the fact that the FBI can already gain access to e-mail, IM and other online communications through a court order. So then what is the point of forcing universities to spend an estimated $7 billion to upgrade their networks, just to make the process faster and more convenient?
Good question, says Cramer, especially since universities have had very few Internet wiretap requests in the past. The government's justification of the extension-that it will help the FBI more efficiently root out terrorist plots-sounds like a half-baked appeal to the carte blanche post-Sept. 11 sentiments of an edgy American public. Most of us have smartened up since then and are more willing to question a "security at all costs" federal mandate, particularly when it means softening up the first amendment.
While the extension of CALEA might not help root out terrorists too smart to discuss their plans over instant messenger, it does shift the "default position" of the federal government's power. Currently, the premise is that all communications are off-limits to government surveillance, but the feds can monitor them in extraordinary situations. Rigging all networks to be tappable at the flip of a switch, on the other hand, suggests that because something can be legally searchable sometimes, it must be physically searchable at all times.
That's a big shift in defining where federal power begins. If the same rule applied to telephone networks, then we'd all purchase phones with a pre-installed bugging device ready to be activated. Tap-on-demand Internet networks would set the stage for more FBI- and Department of Justice-inspired rules to use their new capabilities more often and for more intrusive purposes.
Just look at the chilling-though predictable-abuses of the Patriot Act. Provisions granting the FBI and DOJ sweeping surveillance and search and seizure powers to ostensibly root out terrorists have also been used to identify-and in some cases discredit and smear-environmental and anti-war activists, among others posing a political threat to the current administration. And just last week, The Washington Post ran an article on just-released FBI papers illustrating vast abuses of the department's search and seizure powers under the Patriot Act, including monitoring private e-mail accounts even after warrants had expired.
Will the CALEA mutation evolve into another unjustified extension of federal power? No one knows for sure, but I don't have nearly enough faith in our government to feel comfortable when the only thing standing between me and a whitewashing of our first and fourth amendments is the flip of a switch.
Jared Fish is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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