VOIP Progress To Be Hobbled By Wiretap Costs?

vaporland writes "This article @ nytimes.com talks about the reasons that development of commercial VOIP may be stifled by the costs required to allow the federal government to listen in on conversations. It is the intention of the FBI, et al, to provide a truly unfunded mandate to force VOIP service providers to develop and provide this wiretap access to them at no cost to the U.S. government, which is to say, the consumer of VOIP will foot the bill for allowing the government to listen in on our phone calls. Perhaps they should just hire some script kiddies to show them how to do it on the cheap?"

Comments

I would like the option

[ifdef]

If I don't pay for the wiretapping costs, don't wiretap me.

No cost to the U.S. government

[kfg]

Yeah. Why don't they just use their own money instead of making us pay for it?

KFG

On the bill

[peterdaly]

Oh how interesting things would be if the likes of Vonage added "Federal Wiretap Fee" as a lineitem on the bill.

I bet some federal officials would get an earfull. If the general population will have to pay for this feature, they should at least know.

Re:What would the Founding Fathers think?

[dasmegabyte]

It baffles me why Americans are not rioting in the streets.

Easy. The streets are not a designated free speech zone.