The Federal Communications Commission is undertaking an effort to restrict the innovative freedom of universities at an unprecedented level. Last week, the FCC published in the Federal Register a request to require universities and libraries to completely overhaul their Internet systems to comply with the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. The exact provisions of how CALEA would be adapted to educational institutions are unclear. However, if implemented, the requirements stand to substantially impact the ability of colleges and universities to lead in innovation and technology while creating an undue cost to both students' privacy and university budgets.
The 11-year-old law mandates that telephone and dial-up Internet carriers ensure that their systems are easily accessible for federal surveillance. The FCC's order requires the application of the CALEA requirements to institutions which provide widely used Internet access, such as colleges, universities and libraries. The thousands of universities and libraries affected would be forced to comply with the federal regulations by May 2007, creating a major strain on universities to update their systems.
James A. Jokl, ITC Director of Communications, said in an e-mail interview that the standards might require "the replacement of all the routers and switches in the U.Va. network," which would have a "very significant impact" on both the University and our Internet system. The action by the federal government makes it significantly easier, according to The New York Times, for law enforcement and government officials to monitor online communication and help catch terrorists.
While the requirements sound good -- who doesn't want to catch terrorists? -- the actual feasibility of the regulations proposed by the FCC serve to undermine the ability of universities to be leaders in the research and development of new technologies. According to a joint petition in objection to the requirements that was submitted to the FCC by numerous organizations associated with colleges, universities and libraries nationwide, "no new Internet applications or services could be made available until the Attorney General determines that they are compliant." According to the petition, the amount of bureaucratic red tape universities would have to bypass to carry out development would be almost completely prohibitive to the type of dynamic research that characterizes the technology sector.
Such bureaucracy would likely have intense ramifications nationally, as the report submitted with the petition to the FCC points out, "applying CALEA to campus facilities would choke off the free-ranging experimental environment on which the nation depends for future economic growth."
Additionally, on the individual level, the requirements give the federal government an undue amount of freedom to infringe on privacy. According to The Washington Post, the FCC will have to win court cases filed by, among others, the American Education Council (which represents over 2000 colleges and universities nationwide) before beginning the surveillance. However, if the FCC is successful in implementing the policy, the original purpose of increased surveillance is vulnerable to abuse. According to a Washington Post article last week, there are numerous instances of the federal government violating current surveillance laws regarding communications. The Post reported that illegal FBI Internet surveillance activity included the seizure of e-mail and Internet communications and monitoring of bank statements. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there are at least 287 abuses of Internet monitoring currently being investigated, most pertaining to the FBI's illegitimate surveillance of "political, environmental, anti-war and faith-based organizations." CALEA, through expanding wiretapping to cover the Internet, sets a dangerous precedent for the same kind of abuse.
Besides the absurd impediment to university research and the illegitimate burden on students, the greatest impact of the requirements will be felt in the cost of implementation, the brunt of which will be shouldered by students, and in many cases their parents. Jokl said he "just can't imagine the little extra speed investigators might get from an automated system would be worth the cost of wholesale network equipment replacement at colleges and universities." And quite a cost it would be. Tom Harkle, the senior vice president of the American Council on Education, told The New York Times that the cost could be as high as $7 billion nationally, and at colleges could potentially cost, on average, an additional $450 per student.
If the FCC requirements are implemented, students will be forced to shell out hundreds of dollars to erode their own privacy, while the ability of universities to pave the future of technology research and development is jeopardized.
Sophia Brumby's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at sbrumby@cavalierdaily.com.
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