[asterisk-users] CALEA support within asterisk?

[Rich Adamson]

Inline...

>> On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 12:13:27PM -0500, Rich Adamson wrote:
>>  
>>> Does anyone know if asterisk currently supports the US government's 
>>> Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) 
>>> regulations? If not, does anyone have this item on their To-Do list?
>>>     
>>
>> Why in hell *would* anyone?
>>
>> I don't think CALEA ("to", not "for" :-) applies to anything smaller
>> than a CO switch anyway, does it?
>>
>>   
> Yes it does. Firstly to address the original poster:
> http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-260434A1.doc
> 
> CALEA can in this case be implemented by your provider alleviating you 
> somewhat. Depending on how you infer legalese.

As the OP of this thread, I'm involved with an itsp operation that 
includes asterisk with links to regional/national itsp facilities, PRI's 
to local pstn facilities, and broadband sip/iax connections to residence 
and business customers. I don't think the legalese will be justification 
for not providing calea support.

> CALEA outside of sniffing, facilitates recording information (CDR's 
> etc.) , so setting up a designated machine (syslog perhpas) and saving 
> the logging information(/var/log/asterisk/*) from Asterisk will likely 
> suffice.

I've not dug into the calea requirements indepth as yet, however I 
believe it does require real-time call monitoring (eg, audio), cdr-like 
records, and some form of reporting (unknown what reporting truly means 
in this case).

So, my initial guess is that some "box" will be required (probably one 
provided by law enforcement, or, one that meets technical calea specs 
that must be purchased and installed) that accepts official and secure 
calea transactions (from law enforcement), and forwards those requested 
tranactions to asterisk in some form or another. To further advance that 
"guess", calea transactions may simply request certain cdr detail and/or 
might involve setting up a real-time call monitoring function forwarding 
audio to the requested calea agency. There is likely some sort of 
internal logging and reporting function that can be used as a form of 
"checks and balances" in subsequent court cases, etc.

If those "guesses" are anywhere near realistic, then I'd further guess 
that some asterisk app would need to be written to handle at least a 
portion of the calea tranactions.

Anyone care to confirm or elaborate on those thoughts / guesses?