Hi Susan, Appreciate again being BlogWorthy!

Within the last ten days or so, the key vendor of CALEA compliance services (VeriSign) has taken a very stern tone

Stern? Maybe pragmatic. How about innovative.

network or not) and all connections to the internet should be designed in advance so as to be easily tappable by law enforcement.

With SIP there is no call content. It's all "call data" or as the rest of the world would say, IRI (Intercept Related Information). I think you also miss the point - namely the remarkable similarity between CALEA Sec. 103 and the basic purpose of the SIP protocol. It's almost as if SIP was designed to fall within the ambit of Sec. 103. So, the bottom line is that if you offer to the public the signalling services of what is today's central office, then you should be responsible for meeting the CALEA requirements.

VoIP applications already do. It's a very broadly used peer-to-peer protocol.)

No it is not - at least in the context of CALEA. SIP services are by definition a call setup capability offered by a third party to the call.

Really, how could you, Commission?

Well said! :-)

What's extraordinary about all this firmness on the part of the

This descriptive terminology seems more appropriate for Mattress Discounters!

virtue of a less-than-weak reading of CALEA (which doesn't apply to "information services"), the Commission has gotten up the nerve to act like Congress and proclaim that a huge range of actors have to be CALEA compliant within 18 months, without saying what compliance means.

Actually, under CALEA, it's the FBI who sets the capability requirements, and they did this about three years ago. Over the past three years, standards bodies and the industry have developed the specifications for "what compliance means." The capabilities have also been embedded my most vendors in their equipment already, and third party CALEA compliance providers like VeriSign have implemented those capabilities for customers.

FCC is sometimes flip about whether they are. Enormous, arbitrary, capricious, and aggressive confusion is in the air.

Only if you don't read the available documents.

It's all pretty astonishing and pretty abusive, and the DC Circuit will have its say soon. The CDT coalition just filed a very strong request for a stay of the CALEA order with the FCC,

After having been developed over the past four years with a great dea of pragmatism, this seems neither astonishing or abusive. Indeed, it's not clear how needed forensic information for either infrastructure protection or law enforcement would otherwise be obtained. I'd say this was a "firm" request - which seems likely to be denied.

Commission doesn't respond. The stay request points out that the FCC has effectively delegated its authority to decide how CALEA will be complied with to the DOJ.

What the stay request ignores is that CALEA actually requires this activity by DOJ. The Petitioners seem to have failed to read the Act.

But if you listen to VeriSign, we're all being silly, the world has moved on, and we should just shape up and get with the program. I feel sorry for the well-meaning professional staff at the Commission. They're under tremendous pressure.

Pressure? I think not. Every one of the staff of which I'm aware are quite pleased and proud their work product. cheers, tony