Carriers, DoJ Spar Over CALEA Wiretap Costs
Carriers and the Dept. of Justice can’t agree on who should pay for future broadband wiretaps -- or how much. In final filings at the FCC (Docket 04-295) regarding applicability of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to VoIP services, the sides continued to hurl barbs at each other.
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DoJ encouraged the FCC to stay with its proposed rule requiring carriers to pay for all CALEA-related equipment upgrades after Jan. 1, 1995. “DoJ … strongly urges the Commission to adopt rules reflecting that conclusion, in order to provide carriers with greater certainty regarding CALEA development and implementation cost issues,” it wrote. DoJ also asked the FCC to bar carriers from including CALEA implementation costs when charging for call intercepts.
Carriers rejected the notion. “CALEA itself requires federal law enforcement agencies to bear many of the costs of CALEA compliance for pre-1995 equipment, as well as the compliance costs for post-1995 equipment where compliance is not reasonably achievable,” wrote Verizon in its Dec. 21 reply filing. “For this reason, the Commission has already properly concluded that providers can ‘recover at least a portion of the CALEA software and hardware costs by charging to [law enforcement]… a fee that includes recovery of capital costs, as well as recovery of the specific costs associated with each order.'”
As a new company, Vonage argued it shouldn’t have to pay any CALEA implementation costs because wireline carriers were given $500 million in the early 1990s to upgrade their equipment. “The Commission must remember the enormous compensation that was made available to traditional providers of telecommunications services in becoming CALEA compliant,” wrote Vonage. “It is unclear as to why law enforcement would expect a nascent industry to become CALEA compliant and shoulder all of the associated costs when incumbent carriers… received an enormous amount of assistance from the government.”
Both DoJ and the N.Y. Attorney Gen. complained about the high price of current call intercepts in FCC filings in early Nov. In its latest comments, DoJ expressed doubts about the actual costs of digital wiretaps: “Only a few commenters provided any specific cost information regarding the scope of CALEA costs. Moreover, information provided by these commenters and discussed in other sources suggests that CALEA costs are not as great as has been portrayed.”
Sprint PCS bristled at the accusation of price gouging: “The New York Office of Attorney General states that its Organized Crime Task Force pays between $400,000 and $500,000 annually in carrier fees, a sizable sum at first blush. But… it has secured warrants… on approximately 220 [wiretaps] annually. $400,000 to $500,000 when spread over 220 interceptions (around $2,000) is not a significant sum.” - Randy Barrett