U.S. Defends New Internet Wiretap Rules

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is defending new federal rules making it easier for police and the FBI to wiretap Internet phone calls.

A broad group of civil liberties and education groups — and a leading technology company — say the U.S. has improperly applied telephone-era rules to a new generation of Internet services.

Lawyers were expected to square off Friday over the Federal Communications Commission regulations before a three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia. In an unrelated case last year affecting digital television, two of the same three judges ruled that the FCC had significantly exceeded its authority and threw out new FCC rules requiring anti-piracy technologies.

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The 1994 law was originally aimed at ensuring court-ordered wiretaps could be placed on wireless phones.