Major Industry Groups Seek Stay of Salt Typhoon Ruling
CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom on Wednesday asked the FCC to reconsider a January declaratory ruling by the FCC in response to the Salt Typhoon cyberattacks, which now-FCC Chairman Brendan Carr had opposed (see 2501160041). The ruling concluded that Section 105…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) “affirmatively requires telecommunications carriers to secure their networks from unlawful access or interception of communications.” An accompanying NPRM seeks comment “on ways to strengthen the cybersecurity posture of our nation’s communications systems and services.” Members of the associations “were early adopters of cybersecurity risk management practices, collaborate on these issues with government agencies, and participate in public-private partnerships,” said a petition for reconsideration in docket 22-329. The ruling, “adopted in the waning days of the prior administration without any opportunity for public comment, supplants this longstanding collaborative approach,” the groups said. It also established “an ‘uncoordinated … and counterproductive’ policy based on an expansive reading” of CALEA “that imposes onerous network-wide duties on covered entities.” The ruling is inconsistent “with CALEA’s text, structure, and purpose,” they said: “Congress did not intend for CALEA to evolve into a general cybersecurity statute over three decades after its enactment.”