From the lawyers....
marlon
Congress creates legislation, approves it, and then sends it to the President for signature. After that occurs, you have a federal law. In those laws, Congress may delegate authority to carry out the goals of the legislation.CALEA is a federal law and delegates responsibility for much of its implementation to the FCC. The FCC decided first how wireline providers should become compliant with CALEA. Then, after consultations with DOJ, the FCC determined that both facilities-based broadband and VoIP providers should also become CALEA compliant.There have been court challenges as to whether CALEA's delegated authority extends sufficiently for the FCC to decide that providers of information services (broadband) must follow CALEA. Last summer, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the FCC's extension of CALEA to broadband and VoIP in American Council on Education v. FCC. Here's the link to the actual ruling: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/dccircuit_calea_ruling.pdf Judge Edwards wrote a well reasoned and strong dissent starting on page 21 that Mark would surely agree with. But he lost.This is a prime example of the type of behavior that continually undermines the WISP industry. Why should the FCC open TV whitespace spectrum on an unlicensed basis to companies that urge fellow providers to ignore government laws, especially those specifically designed to ensure public safety and national security? Everybody is free to disagree about the effectiveness, cost, and limitations of CALEA compliance. But no one is entitled to break the law simply because they don't like it.Kris __________________ Kristopher E. Twomey Telecom/Internet Law & Regulatory Consulting www.lokt.net Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote:Hi Kris, Julie and Maura,Can anyone put a good legally acceptable reply to this together for me to respond with? He brings up some good points that I'm ill equipped to deal with.thanks, Marlon (509) 982-2181 (408) 907-6910 (Vonage) Consulting services42846865 (icq) WISP Operator since 1999![EMAIL PROTECTED] www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam ----- Original Message ----- From: "wispa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 12:36 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] CALEA compliance methodsOn Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:09:23 -0700, Marlon K. Schafer wroteMark, your info is 3 years old.... We have to be ready to "tap our lines". Even IMs. marlonI think you missed my point, Marlon... That being that not even the government is a reliable source of information about what the government wants and demands. www.askcalea.com is direct from their mouths. Yes, it's "old", but then the site is still considered live. THE FCC is saying one thing, a different agency is saying another. Concurrently.I have been attempting for how long now, to get across to you people that this whole CALEA flap for ISP's is NOT LAW, but opinion from the FCC, whereit's attempting to write law instead of Congress.It's a mess, because it's NOT LAW, only Congress can write law and it has yetto write a law that says we have to do squat.Frankly, I think every broadband ISP should file and say "we will never be compliant" and just let them TRY to shut down every ISP in the country. It'sabout time we told THEM where to get off, rather than being lambs to the slaughter.But no. WISPA leads the charge to slaughter it's own industry by begging tobe regulated out of existence.Just three years ago, the WISP industry and WISPA was going to show the worldjust how scrappy, independent and courageous we were.We did alright. We turned into worms and mashed ourselves into the pavementinstead. One can only imagine the reaction if some actual competitive threat came along. -------------------------------------------- Mark Koskenmaki <> Neofast, Inc Broadband for the Walla Walla Valley and Blue Mountains 541-969-8200
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