CALEA

Citation: Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA), Pub. L. No. 103-414, 108 Stat. 4279 (1994), codified at 47 U.S.C. §§1001-10.

Communications carriers are obliged to assist law enforcement officials conduct court-ordered wiretaps, but advances in technology make that increasingly difficult. CALEA seeks to preserve the capability of law enforcement agencies to carry out properly authorized intercepts by requiring telecommunications carriers to modify and design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure that authorized electronic eavesdropping can be performed.

Subject to regulatory review by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), communications carriers were responsible for the initial development of technical standards to fulfill their surveillance capability responsibilities under CALEA. Following release of the industry group’s proposed standard (the so-call J-Standard, officially the Interim Standard/Trial Standard J-STD-025), the Center for Democracy and Technology appealed to the FCC claiming the J-Standard violated CALEA’s privacy protections and impermissibly expanded government surveillance capabilities. The Justice Department and the FBI also petitioned the Commission for modifications, arguing that the J-Standard did not include all of CALEA’s required assistance capabilities. The Department sought a list of nine additional surveillance capabilities, its so-called punch list. After receiving public comment on the petitions, the FCC resolved the challenges to the J-Standard in its Third Report & Order.

The United States Telecom Association, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, the Center for Democracy and Technology and several other privacy grounds challenged the FCC order in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The FCC and the Justice Department filed separate briefs defending the Commission’s action. The challengers questioned inclusion of the six of the law enforcement assistance capabilities which the FCC order insisted upon: two from the J-Standard (cellular antenna tower location information and packet-mode data) and four from the FBI’s punch list (dialed digit extraction, party hold/join/drop, subject-initiated dialing and signaling, and in-band out-of-band signaling).

On August 15, 2000, in United States Telecom Ass’n v. FCC, the court of appeals vacated the order and sent back to the FCC that portion of the Commission’s order dealing with the four challenged punish list items, but confirmed the FCC’s authority with respect to digital packet mode data and the antenna tower location.