Panel seeks to fine tech companies
for noncompliance with wiretap orders
Tue Apr 30, 2013 9:23AM
A government task force is preparing
legislation that would pressure companies such as Facebook and Google to enable
law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur,
according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort.
Driven by FBI concerns that it is unable to tap the Internet communications
of terrorists and other criminals, the task force’s proposal would penalize
companies that failed to heed wiretap orders - court authorizations for the
government to intercept suspects’ communications.
Rather than antagonizing companies whose cooperation they need, federal
officials typically back off when a company is resistant, industry and former
officials said. But law enforcement officials say the cloak drawn on suspects’
online activities - what the FBI calls the “going dark” problem - means that
critical evidence can be missed.
“The importance to us is pretty clear,” Andrew Weissmann, the FBI’s general
counsel, said last month at an American Bar Association discussion on legal
challenges posed by new technologies. “We don’t have the ability to go to court
and say, ‘We need a court order to effectuate the intercept.’ Other countries
have that. Most people assume that’s what you’re getting when you go to a
court.”
There is currently no way to wiretap some of these communications methods
easily, and companies effectively have been able to avoid complying with court
orders. While the companies argue that they have no means to facilitate the
wiretap, the government, in turn, has no desire to enter into what could be a
drawn-out contempt proceeding.
Under the draft proposal, a court could levy a series of escalating fines,
starting at tens of thousands of dollars, on firms that fail to comply with
wiretap orders, according to persons who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
discuss internal deliberations. A company that does not comply with an order
within a certain period would face an automatic judicial inquiry, which could
lead to fines. After 90 days, fines that remain unpaid would double daily.
Instead of setting rules that dictate how the wiretap capability must be
built, the proposal would let companies develop the solutions as long as those
solutions yielded the needed data. That flexibility was seen as inevitable by
those crafting the proposal, given the range of technology companies that might
receive wiretap orders. Smaller companies would be exempt from the fines. The
Washington Post
FACTS &
FIGURES
As a senator, Barack Obama vowed he would end warrantless wiretaps and
initially opposed the FISA law based on the addition of telecom immunity, but
ultimately voted for it with immunity intact just six months before winning the
2008 presidential election. Incidentally, the plan was opposed then by six in
10 Americans, according to a poll by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Critics say Americans may be unaware a friend or family member with whom they
have communicated has been targeted in a terrorism probe. They also say such
action threatens privacy rights because intelligence officials can eavesdrop on
them without a warrant. Washington Times
The documents show that real-time monitoring of electronic communications
jumped 60 percent from 2009 to 2011. The Hill
Today, Americans can be subject to search and seizure without a warrant,
detained or imprisoned indefinitely, without charge, without evidence, without
a lawyer, without a trial, or even tortured or assassinated merely for being
accused of being associated with terrorism. Examiner
ARA/HJ
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