ZDNet: Appeals court upholds Net-wiretapping rules

“The Bush administration’s plans to force Internet providers to comply with extensive wiretapping rules received a boost on Friday, when a federal appeals court upheld the controversial regulations.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., refused to overturn the Internet surveillance regulations, saying the Federal Communications Commission made a “reasonable policy choice” when approving them last fall.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, applauded the ruling (click for PDF), saying it “will ensure that law enforcement agencies’ ability to conduct lawful court-ordered electronic surveillance will keep pace with new communication technologies.”

Judge Harry Edwards, who had called the FCC’s arguments “gobbledygook” and “nonsense” during oral arguments before the appeals court last month, dissented. He said the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, does not give the FCC “unlimited authority to regulate every telecommunications service that might conceivably be used to assist law enforcement.”"

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Privacy, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.