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Although the administration wants rapid-fire approval of the Anti-Terrorism Act, technology and privacy experts Tuesday urged Congress to take a slow and careful approach to proposed changes in telecommunication surveillance.

The experts testified before the Congressional Internet Caucus, a bipartisan coalition of 170 members of Congress, and its advisory committee, composed of non-profit and industry representatives. Panelists included Viet Dinh, assistant U.S. attorney general for legal policy; James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology; Bruce Heiman, an attorney and privacy advocate; and John Podesta, former Clinton White House Chief of Staff and now a Georgetown University law professor.

Caucus co-chairs first voiced general concerns and questions to the panelists and audience of 150 Congressional staffers.

Caucus Co-Chair Bob Goodlatte, a Republican representative from Virginia, said Congress is moving quickly on the anti-terrorism front, but it still has "some work to do, particularly on Internet issues."

"What should we do to protect the privacy rights of U.S. citizens in this time of crisis?" asked Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia, also a caucus co-chair.

Dinh said the administration wants to improve the nation's ability to wage war on terrorism without intruding upon personal civil liberties. The administration's proposals, he said, were written with advice from the ACLU and other groups.

"Consultation, although concentrated, has been thorough," he said. "We were listening."

He said the legislation does not try to change the boundary between law enforcement and civil rights; it is meant to level the playing field between law enforcement and criminals.

Broader Powers Sought

Three days after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress passed the Combating Terrorism Act of 2001, increasing law enforcement's ability to monitor Internet communications and demanding that the government "make better use of the considerable accomplishments in science and technology" in the war on terrorism.

The act broadened existing statues to elevate terrorism to the class of crimes that merit high-tech surveillance. In addition, all U.S. attorneys were granted the power to install the FBI e-mail surveillance system Carnivore, previously used only on the order of U.S. deputy assistant attorneys general or higher-ranking Justice Department officials.

Panelists Tuesday agreed that law enforcement should have the tools to keep up with lawbreakers in a world of rapidly advancing technology.

Heiman argued that if the government can't keep up, it should bring its own technology up to speed rather than limiting the abilities and privacy rights of businesses and consumers.

Dinh said the current Anti-Terrorism Act is "restrained and sufficiently pared-down to allow for only what we need to fight terrorism."

But panelists and audience members took issue with some of its provisions.

What's an 'Authorized User?'

Under the new act, one warrant could apply to all forms of telecommunication and could be used to track Web activities; search warrants would apply not only to answering machine tapes but also to voicemail; and ISPs could request FBI surveillance of anyone it considered an "unauthorized user."

Republican Senator Conrad Burns of Montana, a caucus co-chair, said he opposes changing the current procedure. "Let's don't relax those [rules] at all," he said. "Don't penalize people who...do good things."

Dempsey says the act itself should define "unauthorized user," rather than trusting to the discretion of ISPs, who might define unsolicited e-mail (SPAM) as computer trespass.

"It's not meant to apply to the SPAMmers," Dinh responded.

But Heiman also said the wording of the bill is not specific enough, and that Congress would be "setting itself up for a lawsuit" with passage of the act in its current form.

Phone Tap Analogy Challenged

Similar debate centers on trap and trace, a surveillance technique that records the sources of a suspect's incoming phone calls but not the content of those calls; and pen register, a procedure that does the same for outgoing calls. Both investigative methods can be used without warrants.

The new act would allow police to apply these methods to online communications, making e-mail addresses and URLs comparable to phone numbers so that police could know the identity of a suspect's e-mail correspondents without knowing the content of their e-mails. Police could also compile a list of Web sites a suspect had visited.

But Dempsey said the current black-and-white rules for using trap and trace and pen register on telephones won't work online, where "content" can be difficult to define. Some URLs reveal content, he said.

"There's this whole area of gray," Dempsey said.

Co-chair Boucher asked, "Is the subject line [considered] content?"

Dinh replied that the subject line isn't content, but part of the address. But the act doesn't specify.

The new act would amend the following laws:

• The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The original legislation allows communications to be tapped only if law enforcement agents can show probable cause that the person is an agent of a foreign power. The new act would permit tapping to gather evidence in a criminal investigation, not just for foreign intelligence.
  
  
• The Federal Wiretap Act of 1968, or Title III, enables police to intercept communications if they can show probable cause that the communications relate to a crime that has been, is being, or is about to be committed. Currently only an assistant U.S. attorney or higher-ranked Justice Department official can authorize a Title III; under the new act, any U.S. attorney would be able to.
  
  

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• security,
• privacy,
• civil liberties,
• Internet,
• terrorism,
• surveillance,
• Carnivore,
• FBI,
• Center for Democracy and Technology