   The New York Times, February 15, 1997, pp. 32, 38.

   Dispute Arises Over Proposal For Wiretaps

      Phone Companies Balk At Latest Plan by F.B.I.

   By John Markoff

   San Francisco, Feb. 14 -- An old quarrel about the F.B.I.'s
   plan to modernize its system for eavesdropping on telephone
   conversations has flared anew.

   After a contentious meeting earlier this week with the
   Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, telephone
   companies and industry associations are arguing that the
   new system will be far more intrusive and expensive than
   the industry had first thought. They said it would give
   law-enforcement officials sweeping new power to monitor
   tens of thousands of conversations and data transmissions
   simultaneously in a metropolitan area.

   They said, for example, that the bureau's plan would enable
   the law enforcement authorities in Los Angeles County to
   expand their surveillance capabilities a hundred-fold
   beyond their current capacity of 1,360 simultaneous
   wiretaps.

   "This is kind of scary," said Tom Wheeler, president of the
   Cellular Telephone Industry Association, a trade group.
   "What does the F.B.I. know about our future that we don't?"

   F.B.I. officials rejected the industry's interpretation of
   the capacity requirements, saying the numbers were
   inaccurate and far higher than what the bureau wants or
   needs.

   And the F.B.I. said that the industry was wrong in saying
   that the bureau wanted to be able to monitor hundreds of
   transmissions simultaneously from every network switching
   center in a county or metropolitan area. Within the five
   boroughs of New York City, for instance, there are hundreds
   of such switching centers, which route calls and data
   communications from sender to receiver.

   "We never planned to require the industry to meet capacity
   requirements on a switch-by-switch basis," James Kallstrom,
   head of the F.B.I. office in New York, said. "That would be
   crazy."

   Mr. Kallstrom said that many telephone companies could meet
   the F.B.I. requirements by providing special remote
   monitoring equipment covering the network switches for an
   entire region.

   In the case of Los Angeles County, for example, where past
   F.B.I. surveillance data indicate that a total of 1,360
   simultaneous wiretaps might be needed, Mr. Kallstrom said
   that number would be the total capacity needed for the
   entire region -- not, as some industry officials had
   understood from this week's meetings, for each network
   switch in the county.

   The F.B.I. asserts that because digital voice and data
   transmissions are much more difficult to monitor than
   old-fashioned analog telephone conversations, agents and
   detectives with court-authorized wiretap warrants need new
   kinds of network access from the phone companies.

   The Digital Telephony Act of 1994 set the mandate for the
   new procedures, and the F.B.I. has since been trying to
   work out the details.

   The dispute, industry executives contend, has come about
   because the F.B.I. has not detailed in writing what
   surveillance capacity it is seeking. Instead, they say,
   executives have had to draw conclusions from supporting
   data the F.B.I. has filed and from oral comments bureau
   officials have made in meetings.

   Mr. Kallstrom said the industry was misinterpreting data
   about the plan, which the F.B.I. released on Jan. 14[1],
   adding that he was puzzled over how each side could reach
   such different conclusions. But industry executives blame
   the F.B.I. for not sufficiently stating its intentions.

   "One of the problems with this is the F.B.I. hasn't
   committed themselves on paper," said James X. Dempsey,
   staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology,
   a Washington-based public interest organization. "Until the
   F.B.I. unambiguously states on the record what it intends,
   the statute has not been complied with."

   In the face of the mounting debate, the Justice Department
   said on Thursday, which had been the deadline for public
   comments on the plan, that it would extend the comment
   period for 30 days. Several industry executives said they
   expected additional members of the telecommunications
   industry would weigh in.

   The F.B.I.'s revised plan was released in response to
   criticisms of the original proposal early last year[2]. But
   after a meeting last Tuesday with F.B.I. officials,
   communications industry executives came away with the
   impression that the bureau, much more than simply trying to
   transfer its current surveillance capabilities into the
   digital era, was seeking to greatly expand its wiretapping
   capacity.

   Based on the latest F.B.I. plan, Mr. Wheeler said, the
   Cellular Telephone Industry Association calculated that the
   bureau's historical data [3] had shown that the highest
   number of simultaneous cellular phone taps ever conducted
   in the nation by local, state and Federal law-enforcement
   agencies was 6,070. But the F.B.I. is now proposing that
   the cellular industry give law-enforcement agencies the
   ability to monitor 103,190 calls simultaneously nationwide.

   Privacy concerns notwithstanding, industry executives
   contend that such surveillance capacity would cost hundreds
   of millions of dollars, and they complain that the F.B.I.
   is calling for communications companies or their customers
   to pay the bill. With telecommunications on the brink of a
   new round of competition in the cellular and local markets,
   industry officials fear such costs will stifle initiative.

   "The numbers alone are astounding," said Al Gudari, a
   lawyer in Seattle, who represents AT&T Wireless Services
   Inc. "But when you add to that the F.B.I.'s notion that
   carriers and new entrants to markets must pay for it, the
   situation becomes even more amazing."

   Mr. Kallstrom said the bureau was open to working with the
   industry.

   "There are no tricks here," he said. "We are willing to
   work with industry to sort these things out."

   [End]

   1. Latest wiretap plan: http://jya.com/fbi011497.txt

   2. First wiretap plan: http://jya.com/fbi051096.txt

   3. Tables showing court ordered surveillance 1984-1994:

      http://jya.com/nrcd1.jpg (1994 only)

      http://jya.com/nrcd2.jpg (1984-1994)






