Most responses to the Federal Communications Commission's push to get the telecom industry to open up the Internet to police monitoring have been negative. But filed comments from police groups and prominent law enforcement officials indicate strong, even emphatic support for the controversial plan.

"The ability of law enforcement agencies, at every level, to successfully employ electronic telecommunications intercepts, regardless of the underlying technology, and within the constraints of Title III, must not be diminished in any way," writes John Kenney, Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Regional Criminal Information Clearinghouse (LACRCIC), to the FCC.

The FCC has initiated a formal period for opposition comments to its controversial plan commanding Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet phone service providers (VOiPs) to make their systems more accessible to police surveillance.

On August 5th, 2005, the FCC issued a Final Ruling concluding that Internet phone services can easily step in for more traditional phone services, therefore they "must be prepared to accommodate law enforcement wiretaps." The ruling required ISPs to upgrade their systems in compliance with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA); see lasarletter update 2005-11-20.

A consortium of civil liberties groups, corporations, libraries, and universities will challenge a Federal Communications Commission ruling that they must make their Internet infrastructures easier to penetrate by the police.', 'Sun Microsystems, the American Library Association, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among others, will take the FCC decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. They argue that the FCC is wrongly applying the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to the Internet.

"CALEA was drafted specifically to regulate phone networks, which are designed to be closed systems . . . " the Electronic Frontier Foundation''s briefing argues. "If CALEA is misapplied to the Internet, the results will be disastrous. The privacy of innocent people is likely to be violated, innovation will certainly be stifled, and the current and future functionality of the Internet will be crippled."