Originally published November 27 2005
Federal government requires universities to overhaul internet
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The government is extending a law that requires law enforcement to be able to monitor email and other online communication. Universities are protesting the compliance time and $7 billion cost.
The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.
The action, which the government says is intended to help catch terrorists and other criminals, has unleashed protests and the threat of lawsuits from universities, which argue that it will cost at least $7 billion while doing little to apprehend lawbreakers.
Because the government would have to win court orders before undertaking surveillance, the universities are not raising civil liberties issues.
The order, issued by the Federal Communications Commission in August and first published in the Federal Register last week, extends the provisions of a 1994 wiretap law not only to universities, but also to libraries, airports providing wireless service and commercial Internet access providers.
The Justice Department requested the order last year, saying that new technologies like telephone service over the Internet were endangering law enforcement's ability to conduct wiretaps.
The FCC says it is considering whether to exempt educational institutions from some of the law's provisions, but it has not granted an extension for compliance.
Lawyers for the American Council on Education, the nation's largest association of universities and colleges, are preparing to go before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Terry W. Hartle, a senior vice president of the council, said Friday.
The universities do not question the government's right to use wiretaps to monitor terrorism or criminal suspects on college campuses, Hartle said, only the rapid timetable for compliance and extraordinary cost.
Technology experts for the schools estimated it could cost $7 billion just to buy the Internet switches and routers necessary for compliance.
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