The federal government is working to get authorization to listen to "voice over internet protocol" based calls, and have asked the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a rulemaking to create new regulations making it easier for them to provide easy eavesdropping of those internet based calls.
The laws that might enable the FCC to create such regulations without Congress hearing these issues, depend upon an interpretation of the Communications Asssitance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). The Electronic Frontier Foundation has comments on the matter for the FCC that are thoughtful, and worth paying a lot of consideration.
