Judge calls Net wiretap rules 'gobbledygook'

Judge calls Net wiretap rules 'gobbledygook'
The Associated PressFRIDAY, MAY 5, 2006

WASHINGTON A U.S. appeals court panel challenged the Bush administration Friday over new rules making it easier for the police and the FBI to wiretap phone calls made over the Internet. One judge told the government that its courtroom arguments were "gobbledygook" and suggested its lawyer return to his office and "have a big chuckle."

The skepticism expressed so openly toward the government's case during a hearing in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia emboldened a broad group of civil liberties and education groups, which argued that the government improperly applied telephone-era rules to Internet services.

"Your argument makes no sense," Judge Harry Edwards told the lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission, Jacob Lewis. "When you go back to the office, have a big chuckle. I'm not missing this. This is ridiculous."

At another point in the hearing, Edwards told the lawyer his arguments were "gobbledygook" and "nonsense."

The court's decision is expected within several months.

Edwards appeared to be skeptical of the commission's decision to require that providers of Internet phone and broadband services ensure that their equipment could accommodate police wiretaps, under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as Calea. The new FCC rules would go into effect in May 2007.

Critics said the new rules were too broad and inconsistent with the intent of Congress when it passed the surveillance law, which excluded categories of companies described as information service providers.

The commission argued that providers of high-speed Internet services should be covered under the 1994 law because their voice-transmission services could be considered separately from information services. "Congress intended to cover services that were functionally equivalent" to traditional telephones, Lewis said.

"There's nothing to suggest that in the statute," Edwards replied. "Stating that doesn't make it so."

The panel appeared to be more willing to support the FCC's argument that Internet-phone services - which allow Internet users to make and receive calls from fixed-line phones - might be covered under the law.