Trouble ahead for those wanting to monitor Internet-based callsThe telecommunications world was a much simpler place in 1994, when the U.S. Congress passed a landmark wiretapping law. At the time, the statute was meant to take advantage of the new fact that instead of doing wiretaps the old-fashioned way—by walking into a local phone company office with a warrant and some alligator clips—law enforcement officers now could conduct a wiretap centrally on a carrier's network by duplicating a phone call digitally and directing the copy to police headquarters.
Starting on 14 May, the 1994 law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), will also apply to some voice over Internet Protocol providers, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has asked that it eventually be extended to all Internet-based communications. The wiretapping statute was originally designed for traditional telephone companies, which use circuit switching to create a dedicated channel for each phone call. But today, using Internet telephony, almost anyone can be a telecommunications carrier, including Google, Skype, Vonage, and Yahoo, to name just four companies that didn't exist in 1994. (more)
