Telecom Industry Wins a Round on Eavesdropping
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A bill to protect companies from lawsuits for cooperating with the N.S.A. eavesdropping program advanced in the Senate.
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DALLAS, Sept. 11  /PRNewswire/ -- Though there has been a large amount of chatter on the subject of storing VoIP information, no telecommunications company has actually done it.  Until now.
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While seeking the support of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV for legal immunity for participating in National Security Agency eavesdropping, two major phone companies held fund-raisers for him.
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The telecommunications company is said to be in negotiations, in what may be the latest round of deal making in its industry.
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VoIP industry applauds ruling that says local providers can't refuse to carry calls on wholesaler-owned broadband lines.
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Several members of a government board appointed to guard privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror say they're impressed with the protections built into the Bush administration's electronic eavesdropping program.
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The US Supreme Court dismisses a legal challenge to an eavesdropping programme started after 9/11.
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The Senate voted Tuesday to shield from lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without court permission after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
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The Senate handed the White House a major victory by voting to give legal protection to phone companies that aided government wiretapping.
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The jarring polychromatic din of ringing cell phones is increasingly being thwarted - from religious sanctuaries to India's parliament to Tokyo theaters and commuter trains - by devices originally developed to help security forces avert eavesdropping and thwart phone-triggered bombings.
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In a ruling that could have implications for increasingly popular VoIP services, the FCC ruled today that a VoIP service from Vonage Holdings is not subject to the public utility regulations of individual states.
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Telecom managers will have their hands full securing a VoIP network. Experts say layered security is the best way to protect it.
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Hold the phone: Warrantless surveillance of international calls and e-mails into and out of the United States can go ahead while a judge's ruling, which called the intercepts unconstitutional, works its way through the appeals process.
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The U.S. Senate defeated on Tuesday an amendment that would take away legal immunity from telecommunications providers that helped the U.S. National Security Agency conduct surveillance on U.S. residents, earning criticism from two civil liberties groups.The Senate, by a 31-67 vote, defeated an amendment to the FISA Amendments Act, a bill that would make changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and allow the NSA program to continue. In the past, the NSA has conducted telephone and e-mail surveillance of U.S. citizens conversing with terrorist suspects overseas without court-approved warrants.The Senate was scheduled to vote on the full FISA bill late Tuesday.The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) slammed the Senate vote. &quot;Immunity for telecom giants that secretly assisted in the NSA&#39;s warrantless surveillance undermines the rule of law and the privacy of every American,&quot; said EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston. &quot;Congress should let the courts do their job instead of helping the administration and the phone companies avoid accountability for a half decade of illegal domestic spying.&quot;It doesn&#39;t make sense for Congress to work hard on the FISA bill when the NSA and telecom providers can circumvent the law, added Greg Nojeim, CDT&#39;s senior counsel. &quot;The telecom immunity provision sends a message that it&#39;s OK for a telecom to assist with unlawful surveillance when secretly asked to do so by the government,&quot; he said.Democratic Senators Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin had sponsored the amendment to get rid of legal immunity for the telecom providers. AT&amp;T and other telecom carriers are being sued in U.S. court in San Francisco for their participation in the surveillance program, which many civil liberties groups say is illegal.Last month, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech that it is &quot;entirely appropriate&quot; for U.S. intelligence agencies to seek help from private companies like telecom providers, because agencies don&#39;t have all the resources they need to keep the U.S. safe from terrorism.&quot;Some providers are facing dozens of lawsuits right now,&quot; Cheney said then. &quot;Why? Because they are believed to have aided the U.S. government in the effort to intercept international communications of al Qaeda-related individuals.&quot;A House bill, passed in November, does not include legal immunity for telecom providers that participated in the NSA program. The House and Senate would have negotiate the differences in the two bills before sending the legislation to U.S. President George Bush to sign. Bush has threatened to veto a surveillance bill that does not include legal immunity for telecom providers, but congressional authorization for the surveillance program expires Feb. 15.It would be counterproductive for Bush to veto a bill that extends surveillance programs that he says are critical, Bankston said. &quot;The only way they can [get legal immunity] is by fallaciously tying it to something critical,&quot; he said.The EFF will push hard to have House negotiators keep the telecom immunity provisions out of the bill that goes to Bush, Bankston added.The EFF and CDT both prefer the House FISA bill, called the Restore Act. Unlike the Senate bill, the House bill would require court approval of surveillance, and the House version would expire in two years, as opposed to six years in the Senate version. The CDT has produced a chart comparing the two bills.
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Rival mobile telephony vendors are settling their court battle with a cross-licensing agreement.
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The FCC uses fines to get its message across.
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AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein breaks silence to tell ABC News' Nightline about the NSA eavesdropping on the internet, but reveals little new information. In 27B Stroke 6.