An alliance of university presidents, including UT President Larry Faulkner, filed a lawsuit Monday challenging a federal ruling that would force universities to re-engineer their networks by June 2007 to make wiretapping easier.
The Federal Communications Commission ruled that universities must renovate their broadband networks to allow law enforcement officials easier access for surveillance. The American Council on Education said that the upgrades are expensive and unnecessary because a procedure already exists to install wiretaps.
"Law enforcement has a need to be able to stay current with new technology, and that applies to all communications carriers," said Paul Bresson, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice.
In early October, the FCC granted a petition from the Department of Justice to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act to include Internet communication such as e-mail, instant messaging and voice communications. CALEA passed in 1994 and required phone companies to re-engineer phone lines to make the conducting of court-ordered wiretaps more efficient.
Implementing a broad re-engineering of networks has raised concerns about funding and the disruption of experimental networks run by UT researchers, Daniel Updegrove, vice president for information technology said.
Bresson said the Department of Justice is reviewing funding concerns and specific requirements will be released in two weeks. Updegrove said that UT officials won't know the price tag until then, but it could be very expensive, particularly if the FCC insists upon the 18-month deadline.
The cost depends partly on how many surveillance points the Justice Department would require. Having a single point to monitor traffic in and out of the University would not be too expensive, Updegrove said, but complete coverage would be costly, because equipment would have to be installed at every wiring cabinet that ethernet cables run through, which would create security concerns.
"If you create a set of points, you hope that the only one who could listen is law enforcement members with valid credentials," said Updegrove. "But what if the bad guys are listening in too? We would certainly want some clear indication that these doors and windows aren't being left [open] inadvertently and aren't being abused."
Maintaining the re-engineered network presents another financial concern. Updegrove said that even if federal funding is provided for initial installation, upkeep could be very expensive for two reasons: possible federally mandated upgrades every two to three years and tightened security.
Law enforcement officials must get a warrant from a federal judge and then present it to the college or university before they can set up a wiretap. The university's legal counsel would then check liability issues and bring in people to install the required technology.
"Under CALEA, what we would have to do is basically automate it, so basically you could flip a switch to send the information after getting the warrant," said Wendy Wigen, a policy analyst for EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit alliance for university provosts. She said that there were probably fewer than 10 Internet-tapping requests per year across the country.
EDUCAUSE is working with the Justice Department to find alternatives to the broad overhaul, Wigen said.
"They do seem open to suggestions, so we're hoping that we can find a halfway point," Wigen said.
EDUCAUSE's proposal would have institutions hire round-the-clock staff contacts who would know the procedure for a wiretap and would be able to handle the legal and technical aspects. Wigen added that hiring new personnel would be much less costly to universities.
Neither the Justice Depart-ment nor the University would comment on the lawsuit.
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