Everything Is Covered
I've written in the past about the risks to as-yet-unborn inventions and applications posed by CALEA.
(Note: Cheer up! Conservatives should care about this issue. It's all about right to life — in the CALEA context, the right of new innovations to come into being without asking permission. Can't we all just get along?)
I want to point out that the recently-issued CALEA Order has language that extends its application to absolutely everything.
Any application that is ”capable of” connecting to the traditional telephone network is covered. (”To be clear, a service offering is “interconnected VoIP” if it offers the capability for users to receive calls from and terminate calls to the PSTN; the offering is covered by CALEA for all VoIP communications, even those that do not involve the PSTN.”)
Any network connected to either the PSTN or the Internet is covered. (”To the extent . . . [that] private networks are interconnected with a public network, either the PSTN or the Internet, providers of the facilities that support the connection of the private network to a public network are subject to CALEA.”)
See how broad this is? The internet has been redefined as “a public network,” and any VPN that touches it is potentially subject to law enforcement design.
The fundamental reading of the CALEA statute's exclusion of “information services” is wrong — but all Congress has to do is fix that. The breadth of this Commission's claim to power over applications and networks is breathtaking.
Who will have the courage to fight back?