Current CALEA deadline

Deadlines, those always catch people’s attention, especially when they are government mandated, regulatory deadlines. For lawful intercept (CALEA) in the U.S., the next deadline is May 14 2007. That is the date that all “broadband” service providers and “interconnected VoIP” providers must have their networks CALEA compliant. So what is CALEA? The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, a law passed back in 1994 requiring service providers to assist law enforcement, in a uniform, standards based way, with the process of intercepting (wiretapping) the communications of “bad guys”.

In 1994 an explosion of new communication technologies (cell phones, the internet, distributed networks, roaming, faxes …) were placing a technological burden on law enforcement to do a job they no longer had enough expertise or resources to handle, thus they placed request for help and congress supported their request by creating and passing the CALEA legislation. But how does legislation in 1994 drive a deadline in 2007, some 13 years later? Surely by now any obligations under that law have been fulfilled. For the most part carriers have complied but the catch is that originally “information services” were exempted under CALEA. The internet was young then, email wasn’t an indespensible tool, VoIP didn’t exist, neither did Instant Messaging, Chat, Skype or all the other communication tools now in widespread use.

To address this ever expanding gap in coverage, the FBI, DEA and DOJ filed a joint petition in 2004 asking the FCC to include broadband and VoIP providers since so much communication traffic was now occuring over those media. After due consideration, a lengthy review process and input from many different parties, the FCC issued a Report and Order requiring the previously mentioned “broadband” and “interconnected VoIP” providers to come into compliance by May 14, 2007. So now, with not much time left, carriers are scrambling to understand their obligations, figure out how to meet this deadline and put plans in place to implement a solution.

Still mystified? Read on or ask some questions, I’ll definitely take a stab at answering any question relevant to LI (or maybe even any other interesting questions that get posed).