Comverse, CALEA, Israel and the terror investigation
BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on an Israeli-based
company called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized
records and billing data for nearly every phone call made in
America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators
digging into the 9/11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects
may have been tipped off to what they were doing by
information leaking out of Amdocs.
Carl Cameron Investigates Part 3 : Comverse, CALEA, Israel and the terror investigation
HUME: Last time we reported on an Israeli-based
company called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized
records and billing data for nearly every phone call made in
America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators
digging into the 9/11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects
may have been tipped off to what they were doing by
information leaking out of Amdocs.
In tonight's report, we learn that the concern about
phone security extends to another company, founded in
Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government
uses for electronic eavesdropping. Here is Carl Cameron's
third report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT
(voice-over): The company is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary
of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm, with
offices throughout the U.S. It provides wiretapping
equipment for law enforcement. Here's how wiretapping
works in the U.S.
Every time you make a call, it passes through the nation's
elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone
companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies
like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record
and store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit
them to investigators.
The manufacturers have continuing access to the computers so
they can service them and keep them free of glitches. This
process was authorized by the 1994 Communications
Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Senior
government officials have now told Fox News that while
CALEA made wiretapping easier, it has led to a system that
is seriously vulnerable to compromise, and may have undermined
the whole wiretapping system.
Indeed, Fox News has learned that Attorney General John
Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were both warned
Oct. 18 in a hand-delivered letter from 15 local, state and
federal law enforcement officials, who complained that "law
enforcement's current electronic surveillance capabilities are
less effective today than they were at the time CALEA was enacted."
Congress insists the equipment it installs is secure. But the complaint
about this system is that the wiretap computer programs made by
Comverse have, in effect, a back door through which wiretaps
themselves can be intercepted by unauthorized parties.
Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel,
Comverse works closely with the Israeli government,
and under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50
percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli
Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the
DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or
even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is considered
career suicide.
And sources say that while various F.B.I. inquiries into
Comverse have been conducted over the years, they've been
halted before the actual equipment has ever been thoroughly
tested for leaks. A 1999 F.C.C. document indicates several
government agencies expressed deep concerns that too many
unauthorized non-law enforcement personnel can access the
wiretap system. And the FBI's own nondescript office in
Chantilly, Virginia that actually oversees the CALEA wiretapping
program, is among the most agitated about the threat.
But there is a bitter turf war internally at F.B.I. It is the FBI's
office in Quantico, Virginia, that has jurisdiction over awarding
contracts and buying intercept equipment. And for years,
they've thrown much of the business to Comverse. A handful
of former U.S. law enforcement officials involved in awarding
Comverse government contracts over the years now work for
the company.
Numerous sources say some of those individuals were asked to
leave government service under what knowledgeable sources
call "troublesome circumstances" that remain under
administrative review within the Justice Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
And what troubles investigators most, particularly in New York,
in the counter terrorism investigation of the World Trade Center
attack, is that on a number of cases, suspects that they had
sought to wiretap and survey immediately changed their
telecommunications processes. They started acting much
differently as soon as those supposedly secret wiretaps
went into place – Brit.
HUME: Carl, is there any reason to suspect in this instance that
the Israeli government is involved?
CAMERON: No, there's not. But there are growing instincts in
an awful lot of law enforcement officials in a variety of agencies
who suspect that it had begun compiling evidence, and a highly
classified investigation into that possibility – Brit.
HUME: All right, Carl. Thanks very much.
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