The F.B.I. is developing what could become a Bill to allow interceptions of oral communications via the Internet.

© thejournalofregulation

The 1994 Act had already been adopted at the request of the F.B.I. It is also because of technological advances that it was amended for the first time. Indeed, the initial text of 1994 related only to the digital telephone using low-speed networks. However, insofar as the wiretapping are threats to individual freedoms, the law excludes that this can be conduced without a text aiming at expressly the hypothesis in which it is exercised.

Thus, when the high-speed network is technically appeared, there is legal vacuum. The Federal Communication Commission (F.C.C.) proceeded thus in 2004 for the extension of the power of the F.B.I. of low-speed networks to high-speed networks.

That has not been achieved without difficulty, because that the regulator presented as a technical procedure (from one type of network to another), therefore under its pure and simple power of regulation, was denounced by some, such as the Association of Human Rights, as an extension of the repressive powers of the Executive without corresponding guarantee, and by the only fact of the regulator, that was not possible.

It probably explains why a Bill was set up in 2010 to allow the F.B.I. to telephone tapping on conversations on the Internet, that the regulator could not allow alone because it was certainly more than a simple technical extension, this was not pursued. Yet, the very strong analogy between a phone conversation and conversation via te Internet, with the imperatives of security and the new approach of F.B.I is well understood. But seen here once again the tension between regulation and fundamental rights.