Some federal officials want the power to monitor Internet activity on college campuses.
But although Penn - and most American universities - apparently won't have to go along, they are not entirely out of the line of fire.
Last year, the federal agency that regulates communication extended a law so that it could keep tabs on Internet activity, including that on college campuses.
But a coalition of higher-education and privacy-rights groups has sued the government, and it appears that Penn students won't have government officials checking what Web sites they visit.
In September 2005, the Federal Communications Commission extended a 1994 law to allow government access to all broadband Internet access providers without a warrant.
The law - the Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act - originally only required telecommunications carriers to assist law-enforcement officials in carrying out electronic surveillance.
Educause - an association for information technology in higher education - and the American Council on Education, a coordinating body, argued that the FCC overstepped its authority in extending to the Internet a law that originally only applied to phone systems. It would cost universities $7 billion nationwide, they said, to re-do their computer systems to accommodate requirements of the law.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Democracy and Technology also participated in the suit, claiming that privacy rights were infringed.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in June that the law could be extended to include the Internet but could not monitor private institutions without a warrant.
Universities are generally considered private institutions, explained Educause policy analyst Wendy Wigen. Private institutions are defined as usually having a private network and also according to who controls the connection to the Internet.
Penn has not been affected by the extension of the law because it is a "private network," according to Penn's Associate General Council Robert Firestone.
This does not mean law enforcement cannot wiretap in universities - like Penn - under the law, Wigen added.
"It's just much more complicated for them to do it," she said. "It's more expensive and much more time-consuming to do it the traditional way."
Many universities echo the ACLU's concern that the law would infringe their right to privacy.
"We as an association tend to feel very strongly about student privacy because of the independence of private higher education," said Roland King, spokesman for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
Visiting Penn Law professor Phil Weiser said that student privacy in the face of government regulations continues to be a developing issue.
And he added that although the "current bullet in terms of [the law] has been dodged," he predicts that universities will remain under scrutiny.
"There is continuing government interest in having greater levels of oversight of what's happening on college campuses," said Weiser, who studies telecommunications law.
Wigen said lawmakers may try and change the law to include private institutions as well.
"We are a bit concerned that we might get pulled in," she said.
However, she said she has not seen any evidence so far that the government has taken additional steps to tap information from universities.
