Build a Cell Tower, Fund a Spy

by Rebecca Vesely

5:58pm 14.May.97.PDT -- A Louisiana Republican thinks he sees a funding source for an ambitious FBI wiretapping system in the forests of cellular-phone towers rising across the United States. A bill announced Wednesday by Representative Billy Tauzin would encourage leases of federal land for the phone towers in the hope of raising US$1.7 billion over the next five years.

"Given the explosion of new technology, competitors will need hundreds if not thousands of tower sites, which will drive up the value of the sites," said Ken Johnson, an aide to Tauzin, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection.

Last year, the Treasury Department culled $5.9 million from leasing space on federal lands for the towers, Johnson said. The bill would jack up the amount of space leased each year - hoping to raise $100 million in 1998 and $1.7 billion by 2002.

Most of the charged rent would fund the 1994 Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, which mandates that all phone company networks have the capability and capacity to accommodate law enforcement agencies' court-approved intercepts in the face of telecom technologies - like speed-dialing and voicemail - that could otherwise block electronic surveillance.

Some privacy advocates have opposed CALEA because, for the first time, it requires phone companies to design networks to meet law enforcement surveillance requirements. Some also argue that subsequent notices by the FBI on implementing the act expand FBI authority over surveillance beyond what was originally mandated.

Some of the proceeds envisioned under Tauzin's bill would be used for grants to wire schools and libraries to the Internet. This, the thinking goes, would lower basic phone rates because phone companies would not have to pay as much into the federally mandated universal service fund of $2.25 billion to hook up the schools.

"Basically, we would use the money to do three things: fight crime, improve education, and keep phone rates low," Johnson said.

About 22,000 cellular towers dot the United States today, but an additional 100,000 may be needed by 2000, according to the Federal Communications Commission - even though wireless companies now routinely share tower space. Many municipalities are rebelling against the unsightly towers, leaving the federal government in a position to step up and fill the need.

The bill will likely be introduced in the House within the next two weeks, Johnson said.