From a proposal to better track student achievement to a recent federal court ruling on wiretaps, the fight over internet privacy has landed squarely on college campuses.

The anti-terror expansion of an 11-year-old wiretap law could force universities to upgrade campus computer networks, likely at their own expense, to allow for easier access by lurking law enforcement agents.

And a federal Department of Education proposal to analyze individual student performance--a system that requires disclosure of Social Security numbers and other unique identifiers--also has privacy watchdogs crying foul.

The government has long had the power to compel disclosure of data, typically through subpoenas, warrants, or court orders, said Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology.

But now "the government is mandating the collection of more and more data" without scrutinizing whether those legal standards are adequate, he said.

"That's a privacy disaster," said Dempsey.

The Federal Communications Commission wants to expand the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to encompass internet phone calls and broadband wireless providers. A federal appeals court in Washington sided with the federal agency last month in a series of legal complaints filed by Dempsey's group and the American Council on Education (ACE) (see story: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=6349).

Universities and other affected computer providers, such as airports with wireless internet access, have until May 2007 to comply. Law enforcement agencies reportedly would need a court order for such wiretaps.

On July 13, ACE released an internal legal analysis of the court decision that suggests a higher-education institution is exempt from the broader CALEA law if it limits campus computer use to students, faculty, and employees while also relying upon an outside vendor to construct or operate its actual internet network.

"It could come down to something as basic as who owns the cable that connects a campus's network to the internet," said David Ward, ACE president.

Yet at the same time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is circulating a legislative proposal on Capitol Hill that would expand the scope of CALEA, according to both Dempsey and Terry Hartle, ACE's senior vice president for government and public affairs.

Earlier cost estimates suggested a collective tab of $7 billion for affected colleges and universities, but further scrutiny of the FCC ruling has now reduced that amount to an estimated $30,000 to $100,000 per affected campus, Hartle said. Based on approximately 4,000 institutions of higher learning, those estimates would add up to somewhere between $120 million and $400 million nationwide.