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------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 14:51:51 -0500 To: politech@politechbot.com From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: FC: U.S. phone eavesdropping software open to spying --Fox News Send reply to: declan@well.com
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From: Brad Jansen <bjansen@freecongress.org> To: "'McCullagh, Declan'" <declan@well.com> Cc: "'Matthew Gaylor'" <freematt@coil.com> Subject: Lisa Dean: Reax to Law Enforcement Letter re: CALEA Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 12:28:33 -0500
FYI (story below) FBI makes bad worse
> For Immediate Release: > Contact: > December 13, 2001 > Steve Lilienthal > > 202-204-5304 > > slilienthal@freecongress.org > > Dean Reaction To Fox News Report On > CALEA > > Free Congress Foundation's Lisa S. Dean offered this reaction to the > report delivered on Fox News tonight that said local law enforcement > agents delivered a letter to the FBI stating that the wiretap technical > standards are lower and less secure now under the Communications > Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) than they had been. Dean said: > > "We are exercising our `I told you so rights' on this," said Dean, Vice > President for Technology Policy. "From the beginning, both the political > Right and Left warned Congress and the FBI that they were making a huge > mistake by implementing CALEA. That it would jeopardize the security of > private communications, whether it's between a mother and her son or > between government officials. The statement just issued by law enforcement > agencies has confirmed our worst fears." > > - 30 - http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40824,00.html
FNC Carl Cameron Friday, December 14, 2001
This partial transcript of Special Report with Brit Hume, Dec. 13, was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House. Click here to order the complete transcript.
Part 3 of 4
BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on an Israeli-based company called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized records and billing data for nearly every phone call made in America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators digging into the 9/11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects may have been tipped off to what they were doing by information leaking out of Amdocs.
In tonight's report, we learn that the concern about phone security extends to another company, founded in Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government uses for electronic eavesdropping. Here is Carl Cameron's third report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The company is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm, with offices throughout the U.S. It provides wiretapping equipment for law enforcement. Here's how wiretapping works in the U.S.
Every time you make a call, it passes through the nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators.
The manufacturers have continuing access to the computers so they can service them and keep them free of glitches. This process was authorized by the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Senior government officials have now told Fox News that while CALEA made wiretapping easier, it has led to a system that is seriously vulnerable to compromise, and may have undermined the whole wiretapping system.
Indeed, Fox News has learned that Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were both warned Oct. 18 in a hand-delivered letter from 15 local, state and federal law enforcement officials, who complained that "law enforcement's current electronic surveillance capabilities are less effective today than they were at the time CALEA was enacted."
Congress [probably means Comverse --DBM] insists the equipment it installs is secure. But the complaint about this system is that the wiretap computer programs made by Comverse have, in effect, a back door through which wiretaps themselves can be intercepted by unauthorized parties.
Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is considered career suicide.
And sources say that while various F.B.I. inquiries into Comverse have been conducted over the years, they've been halted before the actual equipment has ever been thoroughly tested for leaks. A 1999 F.C.C. document indicates several government agencies expressed deep concerns that too many unauthorized non-law enforcement personnel can access the wiretap system. And the FBI's own nondescript office in Chantilly, Virginia that actually oversees the CALEA wiretapping program, is among the most agitated about the threat.
But there is a bitter turf war internally at F.B.I. It is the FBI's office in Quantico, Virginia, that has jurisdiction over awarding contracts and buying intercept equipment. And for years, they've thrown much of the business to Comverse. A handful of former U.S. law enforcement officials involved in awarding Comverse government contracts over the years now work for the company.
Numerous sources say some of those individuals were asked to leave government service under what knowledgeable sources call "troublesome circumstances" that remain under administrative review within the Justice Department.
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