The Justice and Homeland Security Departments are trying to sneak past Congress and the courts by getting administrative permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). To do what?

According to Chris Strohm of govexec.com,

The Justice and the Homeland Security departments submitted several proposals to the FCC in May and July seeking authority to monitor the electronic communications of airline passengers. The proposals would allow Justice to record all electronic activity without a court order, identify any user by seat number, and automatically interrupt or shut down any communication.

The move is being fought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), which have filed a petition [PDF] with the FCC.

"The commission should decline DoJ's requests, and should instead defer to Congress, which is the only body that can in the first instance consider the constitutional and policy problems raised by such unprecedented proposals," the groups wrote.

"We do not dispute the fact that law enforcement is able, under existing laws and without any action by the commission, to obtain a court order that permits the interception of the electronic communications of people in airplanes," the groups added. "Instead, the critical issues are whether the commission has any statutory authority whatsoever to impose anticipatory, full-time and warrantless interception of information about all communications of all airline passengers--a proposal seemingly drawn directly from George Orwell's 1984--and whether law enforcement should be given extraordinarily invasive design control over air-to-ground communications."