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An FCC ruling requiring VoIP providers to give law enforcement agencies wiretapping capabilities is legal, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. With the judgement, the court has upheld the FCC's August 2004 ruling which said interconnected VoIP providers must allow wiretapping by May 14, 2007. Several organizations, including the American Council on Education, Sun and the Centre for Democracy and Technology, had petitioned the ruling, saying it could introduce security vulnerabilities into VoIP services and drive up costs for customers. These institutions had contended that the FCC ruling could cost them billions of dollars in upgrades, expose their networks to more attacks, and jeopardize rights to privacy and freedom of speech. FCC's Sept. 23, 2005 ruling extended the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) wiretapping order to broadband Internet providers and "interconnected" VoIP providers next year. The higher-education community is concerned the FCC ruling does not distinguish between public and private networks, and could potentially extend the CALEA compliance requirement to university and enterprise networks. Analysts calculate that just the hardware cost (at approximately $400 to $500 per student), would very likely entail a $7 billion price tag for all of the colleges in the United States. FCC's ruling does not state specifically that institutions of higher learning need comply with CALEA, and neither does it rule it out either. Because it extends the wiretapping order to facilities-based Internet access providers, CALEA by default includes colleges and universities, analysts said.
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