An August ruling by the Federal Communications Commission could spell trouble for cash-strapped universities and their students, several education groups have warned.
In a preliminary decision, the commission ruled that broadband Internet service providers should be responsible for maintaining the ability to intercept the origin, destination and content of online broadband transmissions including phone calls made over the Internet. These calls were not originally included in a 1994 law requiring the telecommunication industry to maintain the ability to intercept the same information over traditional phone lines.
The American Council on Education — a national lobby group that represents universities around the country, including UCSD — criticized the ruling in a statement.
“A.C.E. and the higher education community support the need for law enforcement access to communications traffic under appropriate conditions,” said Sheldon Steinbach, the group’s vice president and general counsel, in the statement. “However, issues still remain: it will be incredibly expensive for colleges and universities to make their networks [compliant], not to mention the damper on innovation and the privacy issues that will need to be addressed.”
In its ruling, the commission upheld a joint petition filed by federal law enforcement agencies to extend the 1994 law to include broadband services.
Universities would be forced to upgrade their facilities out of their general budgets, which are already stretched to a breaking point, a coalition of educators said in opposition to the decision.
“The cost of having to upgrade networks every time law enforcement needs to wiretap could be cost prohibitive,” said Garret Stern, a policy analyst with Educause, a nonprofit association dealing with information technology for universities and a party of the coalition.
Debates over the ruling have occurred as UCSD announced its plan to provide Internet phone calls on campus. On Sept. 27, UCSD joined with SIPphone Inc., to unveil an experimental connection of UCSD’s traditional phone lines and its Internet service.
The joint effort will allow students and faculty to use a campus phone to call any other phone on SIPphone’s worldwide network, free of charge, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Administrative Computing and Telecommunications Elazar Harel said in a university statement. In its experimental form, the program will allow approximately 25 Internet phone calls to occur simultaneously, according to the statement.
Under the FCC ruling, this type of managed network would be subject to law enforcement wiretaps and would therefore need to be updated, according to Julius Knapp, the deputy chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology.
The preliminary decision concluded that broadband service providers, including public universities that offer free Internet services, should be required to install new monitoring equipment at their own costs.
The commission tried to alleviate the strain on schools and universities that offer free Internet services by tentatively concluding that the burden of financing the conversion would not rest on establishments, which merely provide the Internet service. Instead, it would rest on the company that sells the service to these establishments.
While this clarification excludes most universities from financial culpability, it fails to do so for many California schools. The University of California system, the California State University systems, several private universities and many high schools receive external Internet access from the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, according to Jim Dolgonas, the president of CENIC.
As a nonprofit organization, CENIC’s expenditure would “eventually be reflected in [UCSD’s] bills,” as well as those of other universities, Dolgonas said.
In response to the preliminary decision, a group of education associations, including A.C.E. and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, filed comments with the commission citing their concerns.
“We are not aware of any cost estimates for creating a national surveillance system for our universities and libraries that provide Internet access, but increasing prices is not an option,” the educators stated in documents filed with the FCC. “Unlike common carriers, coalition members provide Internet access on an unpriced, noncommercial basis.”
The coalition argued that the ruling would stifle technological development as well as require libraries and universities to collect more personally identifiable information if the records were later subpoenaed. Under the guidelines of the ruling, no new technology could be introduced into either the private or public sector without first being engineered to comply with the federal standards.
The commission defended its decision, citing the need for surveillance by law enforcement agencies in order to promote domestic security and fight crime.
“We don’t want to create spaces where people who are up to no good can have a safe haven,” Knapp said.
However, an agreement that strikes a balance between security and the concerns of the educators can be reached, he said.
The agency will accept comments through early December before the ruling is finalized.
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