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Communications Privacy

Pay To Have Your Phone Tapped 387

Posted by michael from the insult-to-injury dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Globe and Mail is running an interesting story over who should carry the cost of wiretapping (registration may be required): 'Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals.'"
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Pay To Have Your Phone Tapped More

Pay To Have Your Phone Tapped

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  • Har (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Perianwyr Stormcrow ( 157913 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @06:53PM (#9976367) Homepage
    at least the money comes up front... Not as if you aren't paying already.

    • Re:Har (Score:5, Insightful)

      by John Courtland ( 585609 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:06PM (#9976455)
      I find it extremely stupid that law enforcement can pluck money from here and there. It makes it really difficult to determine all their income sources, and almost seems like laundering in a way. They should ONLY get money from direct taxation (property taxes, and maybe sales taxes if applicable), and that should be publically auditable.

      • Re:Har (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:14PM (#9976492)
        This would be direct taxation, a 25 cent wiretapping tax. They will probably find a better name for it, Patriotic duty or something but it is still a direct tax.

        Patriotism sucks.
        • Hmm, you're right. I suppose I meant specifically a single point of income that can be traced.

          • Re:Har (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Geek of Tech ( 678002 )
            >>Hmm, you're right. I suppose I meant specifically a single point of income that can be traced.

            Yeah, but they're probably afraid that if they make it that easy to find where the money comes from, we might want them to make it as easy to find out where it goes.

        • Re:Har (Score:3, Informative)

          by aastanna ( 689180 )
          Nope, this is a proposal by Canadian police chiefs. We don't have patriotism here....we have "at least we're not americans".
      • That's the way it is now. The cops are getting billed by the phone company for the wire taps and records searches and are supposed to pay for it out of their operating budgets. The money for wire taps, informants, etc are supposed to be budgetted out of the public funds that they receive for their annual budgets. Where things are getting complicated and where the controversy lies is that some police forces are refusing to pay the bills when they arrive and instead using the money for other things (unspec

    • Re:Har (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jrockway ( 229604 ) * <jon-nospam@jrock.us> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:16PM (#9976502) Homepage Journal
      Thank you Pringles can + 802.11g + VoIP + IPSec.

      Wiretap? Have fun.
      Tax? Try me.
      • I'm figuring that either a) your signal hits the traditional infrastructure at some point or b) you have a very small circle of contacts. As your signal got to slashdot, I'm going to assume the answer is a.

  • You're going to pay somewhere (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 15, 2004 @06:54PM (#9976370)
    On your phone bill or through your taxes elsewhere.

    • Re:You're going to pay somewhere (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pretzalzz ( 577309 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @06:59PM (#9976404)
      The difference of course is that normal taxes are progressive, the richer you are, the more you pay. Whereas with this both rich and poor will be paying the same surcharge so the poor will be hit harder as a percentage of their income.

      • Re:You're going to pay somewhere (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The difference of course is that normal taxes are progressive, the richer you are, the more you pay.

        You misunderstand the regular meaning of "progressive tax". A so-called "progressive tax" charges the wealthy a higher percentage, so they pay a higher rate. Most income taxes are like this. Most rich people pay much more income tax than the poor. Many poor people pay no income tax.

        Flat taxes charge everyone the same rate - sales taxes and property taxes are usually like this. The wealthy still pay more th

    • Police Corruption to Blame (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mfh ( 56 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:39PM (#9976604) Homepage Journal
      I'm sorry it's called a police budget. I'm a Canadian and I'm sick of the cops trying to weasel more and more money out of us taxpayers. They squander their budgets on police brutality and corruption cases, so it's not my fault they have fallen a tad short these days. And I'm not paying for it. This kind of cash grab always happens when the Liberals are in. It's worse when the Tories get in... they just hand the cops more money without asking. The Liberals always want to ask us for more money.
    • Blockquoth the poster:

      On your phone bill or through your taxes elsewhere.

      In which case, perhaps better on the phone bill. At least it's there and line-itemed, reminding people that the government is in fact tapping phone lines, etc. Otherwise it will just get hidden in the general fund.

      On the other hand, as someone else pointed out, this is regressive. Maybe funding through income taxes would be better. It's a toss-up to me.

    • Re:You're going to pay somewhere (Score:5, Insightful)

      by danharan ( 714822 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:47PM (#9976638) Journal
      You're going to pay somewhere...

      On your phone bill or through your taxes elsewhere.
      Lots of people already answered this one with knee-jerk reactions, but here goes an attempt at reason...

      We are already paying for police investigations through our taxes. We do have to pay somewhere- but do we have to pay to sustain numerous bureaucracies? If people don't mind, maybe we should tax dental care to promote dental hygiene, and condoms for sex education? Or, in the same vein, taxing internet access to fund internet surveillance?

      To create another special tax just creates more inefficiency in an already complex system, not to mention that consumption taxes are the most regressive of all. We have a tax system that needs fixing, not more regressive, byzantine jerry-rigging.

      The police/RCMP/CSIS are already conducting surveillance, and paying for it with their respective budgets. Is this a thinly veiled way of increasing their wiretapping budget and legitimating this practice, and the need for corporate communication? What does this entail for new communications technology -- will all companies be required to create easy backdoors for snooping [boingboing.net]?

      Finally, the very assumption that we'll have to pay is offensive. If we had to pay, it should be done through taxes. But do we need to, and how much should we spend on this priority? I'd like that decision to be made where it ought to be- in the budget debate in our elected parliament. Such a decision ought to be made knowing full well what stupid things our intel services have seen fit to investigate over the years, and whether we ought to trust them to actually recognize a threat without undue harm to civil liberties and privacy. E.g. see Whose national security? [btlbooks.com]

    • Why not charge someone for the tapping fees upon conviction? That way you have to be *convicted* to pay. It might cut down on unneccessary wiretaps too....

  • And? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Trailwalker ( 648636 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @06:54PM (#9976371)
    Will he next ask for a tax for doughnuts?
  • You pay for it either way.. At least in this case its not 'hidden'...

  • Hey cool! I hate money anyway. (Score:5, Funny)

    by theluckyleper ( 758120 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @06:56PM (#9976385) Homepage
    I've also been looking for someone to kick me in the nuts, for $10/hr. Any takers?

  • misc phone charges (Score:5, Insightful)

    by commo1 ( 709770 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @06:56PM (#9976387)
    The phone company (Bell) will eventually win, jacking up prices at this suggestion for the supposed costs involved in the physicaly act of wiretapping. The government can't win, as it has a) the Bell Canada lobby against it and b) the canadian public totally against it. Eventually, these fees will be hidden in the cost of the phone service, per line, with no explanation, except that the fees will be diverted to a waretapping fund.

    • Re:misc phone charges (Score:2, Informative)

      by 3l1za ( 770108 )
      Seriously, dude; admit you didn't RTFA.

      Because if you had, you would know that the phone company doesn't want to "jack up prices" to cover the costs. Or the "supposed" costs as you say (you doubt that there are real costs involved?).

      But the country's largest phone company believes that telecommunications firms and law-enforcement agencies, not subscribers, should split the costs.

      "We think there should be more of a partnership between the agencies and us, rather than getting the public to pay for i

      • Re:misc phone charges (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @08:08PM (#9976703)
        what are the costs of wiretapping?

        wages? - already paid for
        training? - already paid for
        phone lines? - already paid for
        equipment? - already paid for

        what the fuck needs paying for that the police don't already do/have?

        is "police uniform tax" going to turn up on all my clothes next?

        "police car" tax on cars?

        "police car petrol" tax on petrol?

        wiretapping has been going on for decades without needing a special tax. now the police have more powers than ever so it should be even cheaper. this is bullshit.

  • Not a chance (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sneftel ( 15416 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @06:56PM (#9976388)
    Police say they cannot - and should not - be forced to pay the often hefty costs involved in carrying out court-approved wiretaps and message searches, warning that investigations will suffer if they are expected to pick up the tab.
    BS. Law enforcement is publically funded. If it's not funded enough, fine; we the voters will think about giving you more money. But making an end run around the process just because law enforcement in the new millenium is sooo expensive, thereby giving them a cash flow that actually encouragesthem to wiretap frivolously, is not an appropriate solution.

    • Re:Not a chance (Score:5, Interesting)

      by swillden ( 191260 ) * <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @08:23PM (#9976771) Journal

      If it's not funded enough, fine; we the voters will think about giving you more money.

      The common response to this is that it's way too expensive to take this route, because building all of the wiretapping infrastructure will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. We'd have to double the law enforcement budgets if they had to pay to build this infrastructure themselves.

      However, that just raises the question of whether or not wiretapping infrastructure is a good way to spend our law enforcement dollars. All privacy, etc., issues aside, wouldn't we be better off taking the same amount of money and using it to hire more/better cops?

      • Re:Not a chance (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Sneftel ( 15416 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @08:50PM (#9976902)
        One way or another, if it's paid for, we're going to end up paying for it. If we raise income taxes, we pay for it there; if we make the phone company do free wiretaps, we pay increased rates. The key, however, is that if police are forced to request funding through normal channels, they're less able to obscure the true extent of their funding. That, after all, is the aim of all those nickel-and-dime taxes: to spread the perceived burden.

  • Who should pay? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by usefool ( 798755 )
    I guess the answer is pretty obvious - no matter who initially paid for this, customers will be the ones shouldering the cost.

    This has already happened to the airline industry, guess who is paying for the security tax7?

  • A no-registration version (Score:5, Informative)

    by theluckyleper ( 758120 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:00PM (#9976419) Homepage
    Here's a version [canada.com] of the article with no registration required.
  • Lovely. Tap folks and charge them for it in the process. Ya gotta love law enforcement.

  • Taxpayers pay anyway (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:01PM (#9976423)
    Doesn't matter if it's a direct tax on your phone use, or an increase in your income tax (well, it does matter in terms of fairness - do the rich/poor/heavy-phone-users pay more or less of the total antiterrorism bill? - but ultimately, it is the mass of taxpayers that will bear the burden)
    • There may well be a difference. The suggested fee is a flat rate, charged automatically with no relation to the actual costs. Even if the costs are a small precentage of the money charged, the charges go on. If it comes out of income tax, all that goes to wiretap payments is the amount actually needed.
    • Yes, but the way they said it makes me think about one of those communist "joke" that the prisoner's family needed to pay for bullet fee....

  • at least they're being honest about it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by js7a ( 579872 ) <james AT bovik DOT org> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:04PM (#9976440) Homepage Journal
    Here in the U.S., the FBI's revised-after-passage specifications for Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) compliance is estimated to cost carriers $3 to 5 billion [cdt.org].

    And with a burden shared equivalently by all carriers in this age of record corporate profits, who is going to pay for that? You will, but there will be no line-item on your bill letting you know. Just an across-the-board price hike.

    • "There are lies, damned lies and statistics"
      Did the author of that page (or you) ever consider the president BEFORE the one who posted all those gains? 4 years makes a difference, but not a huge one. We're still seeing backlash from things Clinton and even the first Bush did. Get a clue.

  • This reminds me of China (Score:4, Funny)

    by doc modulo ( 568776 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:04PM (#9976442)
    Where your family will get billed for the bullet after you get executed.

    On the other hand, who am I to talk, as the Netherlands is the country with the most wiretaps in the world annually, or at least the most open about the amount they wiretap.

  • In Canada, we pay for everything (Score:5, Informative)

    by gringo_john ( 680811 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:11PM (#9976479) Journal
    On my monthly Telus phone bill (in Vancouver BC), there is a $0.14 CAD charge for 9-1-1 emergency service.

    On top of this, there is also a $2.95 Telus long distance administration charge. This charge I'm told is for using Telus's long distance service, regardless if I make any long distance calls. I hear that if I switch long distance carriers, this administration charge increases.

    They could easily add a $0.25 "security enhancement" charge to my phone bill.

    • Stop bitching and start using a VoIP provider. This is why capitalism doesn't work; people like yourself just whine about the status quo, instead of looking for a better option.
      • Until there's a power outage and/or the guy actually needs to call 911. Then having ditched the POTS line for VoIP just became a costly proposition indeed. The road I'm considering is maintaining the cheapest possible measured service on POTS to keep E911 access (and a working phone during power and broadband outages), and using VoIP as a main line.

  • Here's Your Receipt (Score:4, Funny)

    by Myriad ( 89793 ) <myriad@the[ ]d.com ['bso' in gap]> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:15PM (#9976499) Homepage
    OFFICIAL: (tearing out sheet from pink book) That's your receipt for your phone tap. (taking blue book from her)

    MRS. BUTTLE: Thank you. And this is my receipt for your receipt.

    (sigh)
    Blockwars [blockwars.com]: free, multiplayer, Tetris like game

  • Hey, uh, I've got a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Moonwick ( 6444 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:17PM (#9976505) Homepage
    Guess who's already paying for that phone tapping? Here's a hint: it sure ain't the criminals, for the most part.

    Duh.

  • Free? (Score:2)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 )
    Utilities use public land, resources and in other ways burden the taxpayer. Maybe the government shouldn't have to pay.

  • Brazil (Score:3, Funny)

    by Beardydog ( 716221 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:25PM (#9976543)
    "I understand this concern on behalf of the taxpayers. People want value for money. That's why we always insist on the principal of Information Retrieval charges. It's absolutely right and fair that those found guilty should pay for their periods of detention and the Information Retrieval procedures used in their interrogations."

  • User pays system (Score:5, Funny)

    by syousef ( 465911 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:29PM (#9976561) Journal
    Only charge those who are being wiretapped. That way they can see the charge in their bill, know they're being tapped, and stop using that phone line to conduct their illegal activies. This ultimately reduces the cost of wire tapping to zero. ;-)
    • That happened in Germany two years ago :-)

      Some customers of the mobile phone provider "O2" got bills with a lot of "outgoing voicemail" connections to one certain telephone number.
      That number was used by the authorities to record the customers calls - so warning the suspects that they were under observation.
      According to some spokesperson of "O2" the reason was an erroneous software update.

      Two year old (german)article [heise.de] at heise.de and a follow up [heise.de].

  • Waste-not-want-not (Score:4, Funny)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:30PM (#9976565) Journal
    Well if were getting charged for it, we might as well use it eh?: "Plot, bomb, president, plane, nuclear, chemical, hi-jack, kill, big-mac.

  • The cost may keep the number of taps down. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:33PM (#9976579) Homepage
    As several others have pointed out, all wiretapping, email snooping and other communications intercepting are inherently invasions of privacy, but are sometimes needed. If the police agency asking for it has to pay the costs out of their regular operating budget, then they have to ask themselves if the benefits are worth the cost. Having a fund like this means it's effectively free for them, making "fishing expeditions" more attractive, and invites abuse. Yes, I know they still have to persuade a judge to sign the warrant, but I'd still rather have the police reluctant to use them without good reason.

  • Big deal - no real news. (Score:5, Funny)

    by rainer_d ( 115765 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:33PM (#9976583) Homepage
    In Europe, it's common knowledge that the telcos pay the costs of the wiretapping infrastructure (upfront, I don't believe they're swallowing it).
    This is very nice for the authorities, as they could have a system built to their spec but not pay a single cent for it.

    What is interesting is that some time ago, a large German telco made a mistake and billed several customers for the wiretapping (their detailed phonebill showed lots of connections to a number where the calls were presumably forwarded to).
    Obviously, the authorities were not amused at all.

    It has not happened again since ;-)

    Rainer

  • Isn't it obvious? (Score:3, Funny)

    by FisherRider ( 800548 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:36PM (#9976591)
    Sheesh, people! It should be so clear - if a person is causing a problem, you send them the bill. Just charge the suspect. Make sure to get the money before you do it. You could tell them it was for... I don't know, a nation-wide iPod purchasing campaign.

  • Fire Grue as the spokesmen (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Get a load of this:

    "We're thinking, amongst ourselves, 25 cents. Whether that would cover off all the costs, we don't know. We haven't done the analysis on it," Supt. Grue said.

    What a maroon.

  • ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 15, 2004 @07:49PM (#9976646)
    People are looking at Voice over IP as a solution to all this idiocy, but really, not because of its technological advantages at all. They're looking at it because telephone communication is too mainstream and has been saddled with all these extra charges, surveillance, telemarketing, et cetera, none of which is optional to pay for. If VOIP was mainstream, it would have exactly the same crap tacked onto it.

    I don't see why i should have to buy anything but what I want to buy... which is commmunication with family, friends, government, and businesses. Telcom's should not be forced to offer 'services' like this at all, they should only be motivated to offer services that benefit and attract customers.

    If the country thinks they should be using wire taps that is totally separate, and the budget certainly does exist.

    • Secure VoIP (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @09:24PM (#9977051) Journal
      If VOIP was mainstream, it would have exactly the same crap tacked onto it.

      Really?

      Allow me to post something that I wrote last time Slashdot ran a "tapping VoIP" article:

      Whoever thinks that they are going to wiretap all VoIP networks at the FBI is living in dreamland. Let's take a brief look at a quick VoIP system that I'm going to design. I'll even publish the source code, right here on Slashdot. It will take me a few seconds to write:

      #!/bin/bash
      # smallvoip.sh
      # VoIP software capable of bypassing FBI wiretap regulations.
      # Warning: use or posession of this software may be a federal crime in the United States of America. Download this software at your own risk.
      # Copyright 2004, 0x0d0a, released under the GPL
      # Usage: smallvoip remote-username remote-ip-address
      # You must have a shell account on the remote machine.
      # Run on each of the two machines involved in the call.
      # Duplex audio support required.
      # TODO: pass through lame or oggenc for better bandwidth usage. This will make the second line slightly longer.
      # LIMITATIONS: only one user per host at once
      # I recommend setting up public-key ssh authentication with this software.

      nc -l -p 7001 >/dev/dsp &

      ssh -R 7000:`hostname`:7001 $1@$2 "cat /dev/dsp|nc localhost 7000"

      Hmm. My high-security, encrypted Internet phone doing VoIP.

      Now, I have to ask the people in charge of Homeland Security: do you really, truly, honestly think that you have *any* hope of keeping anyone from writing such a two-line program? Any *IX user with a bit of experience could write this piece of software and distribute it to the world. In addition, the fact that it contains voice data is essentially undetectable to the outside world, so there is no practical way to "catch" someone using such a system.

      It is true that this is a very simple program, but it can also be very easily extended into a full-blown encrypted voice communication program, without the minor limitations here that make this annoying for day-to-day use. In addition, there are a vast number of extant Internet systems for communicating that cannot be wiretapped by the FBI -- PGP/GPG contains no back doors to allow wiretapping of email communications. Frost (on the Freenet platform) can disguise the very fact that an association exists between two users. These systems are rarely used, but they are also not hard to deploy, and if the FBI insists on forcing conventional voice communication to be breakable, there is little incentive not to use systems such as the one that I have demonstrated here.

      • Now, I have to ask the people in charge of Homeland Security: do you really, truly, honestly think that you have *any* hope of keeping anyone from writing such a two-line program?

        Prosecutor: "Your Honor, the prosecution enters into evidence this encrypted VoIP stream, which originated from the defendant's computer, at the date and time of foo."

        Judge: "So entered."

        Prosecutor: "Mr. Defendant, what is your encryption key?"

        You: "Um....."

        Judge: "I'll remind you that not disclosing it instantly lands

  • Either:

    An individual line item for $0.25 on your bill --- "Security Surcharge - $0.25"
    or
    "Due to increased operating costs, we're changing the base rate for standard phone service from $18.45 to $18.70"
    or
    "Police budget will increase this year by $600,000 dollars. Most of this increase will be used to create two new officer position, specifically targeted at electronic crime prevention. The rest will be used for their network infrastructure."

  • Doublespeak (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 3l1za ( 770108 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @08:12PM (#9976725)
    I actually think this whole thing is doublespeak.

    The company -- Bell Canada -- is doing a nice job of saying that it's concerned for the customer. Doesn't want to increase costs covered by the customer, ...

    But what they mean is that (a) they don't want the customer to see this charge as part of their Bell Canada (TM) phone bill; AND (b) they don't want to cover the costs for processing that charge...

    But mostly Bell Canada doesn't want to be seen as the SOURCE of this cost. Which is completely understandable AND completely fair. This is not a charge related to upgrading their network or switches or ... it's a charge that is wholly the result of national security concerns. As such, it belongs (a) being regulated by external oversight (not just giving Grue a blank check for some amount that results from charging each customer what seems to be not an overly burdensome amount); and (b) coming from the public in the form of a tax.

    Grue doesn't want to have to justify the costs to the public and so that's why he wants to just pass it onto them under the auspices of the phone company, always an easy villian (behemoth, ...).

    As every /.'er has said, the public will cover the costs, it's just a question of who has to stick them with the bill. So this story is about all of these people playing musical chairs to avoid getting stuck with delivering the check. Not even covering it. And it's a totally appropriate expenditure in my mind.

    At least the phone company says it's willing to split the costs: half coming from LE, half from the phoneco itself; whereas LE just wants to charge everyone a quarter b/c, as Grue says, that seems about right (next breath he says that he hadn't done the analysis on those numbers yet--whatever).

  • Oh, no, there you just paid for your own police interrogation.

  • Ideally I'm a libertarian (with a small l). I want government to be small. I do not want government to have these blanket rights to do these things because, ultimately, the misuses and abuses will scale up to be more expensive than any real uses. People can cry and scream about catching criminals all they want but, at the end of the day, how many times has any criminal been caught on the basis of a phone tap? In all of my years criminals are still caught by good old-fashioned investigation. Phone taps
  • It's not like wiretapping is new; has Bell/Telus/Alliant or the RCMP/local police agencies been picking up the cost for the last 30, 40 or 50 years?

    What the article does not say is that the costs at issue really concern access to Internet email and services from an attempt to modernize wiretapping regulations (the Liberal governement originally proposed these changes two years ago). There must already exist an infrastructure for tapping wireline and wireless phone calls since police have been doing this fo

  • User pays (Score:3, Funny)

    by Trickster Coyote ( 34740 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @08:58PM (#9976947) Homepage
    I think it is grossly unfair to make everybody pay for wiretapping when the majority of people will themselves never be wiretapped. Kind of like paying the private copying levy [wired.com] on blank CDs when all you are doing is backing up your data.

    To be fair, they should only add the levy to the phone bills of people who are being wiretapped.

  • "Future Jail Surcharge" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kmahan ( 80459 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @10:34PM (#9977372)
    It seems to me that by the police being allowed to have a special "wiretap surcharge" put on the bill that just makes it easier for them to say "let's tap a whole bunch of folks and hope for the best, since it's free." What crap. At least now they have to put a little thought into the consequences (since it seems more and more a judge's signature isn't required). At least if it comes out of their "budget" they have to convince the government to up their budget. Besides, at least here in the US they are already crying "poverty" and confiscating everything worth anything criminals. Maybe a little better management of their money (rather than their tricked out shiney Ford Explorers, Crown Vics, Harleys, and other high end vehicles) would allow them a few more dollars to violate our supposed rights.

    The next thing you know we'll start seeing a "Future Jail Surcharge" explicitly on your taxes -- viewed as an investment in "your possible future incarceration."

  • Beware the Bureacracy Factor (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @11:08PM (#9977498) Homepage
    If this surcharge is put in place then obviously the price will need to be adjusted occasionally. By exaggerating the need for wiretaps the police chiefs can increase their budgets and their headcount without even raising taxes because the citizen only sees an increase in his phone and internet bills.

    Don't think it could happen? More than once, a friend of mine who compiles crime statistics was pressured by his female boss to massage the numbers for domestic violence cases because that is her pet peeve. She couldn't flat out say to change the numbers but it was clear what she wanted, especially after several years of this. He ended up reclassifying certain types of cases that had never been counted under DV before. Presumably she wanted to show an increased need for funding either for her own satisfaction or as a political favor to the director of that program.

    I guarantee you that if someone can bump up their headcount or budget by doing more wiretaps then more and more wiretaps will get performed regardless of the true need. Peace. Big Brother loves you.

  • Fun with the news (Score:3, Funny)

    by softspokenrevolution ( 644206 ) on Monday August 16, 2004 @12:14AM (#9977711) Journal
    Really, one of the problems I can see with this whole; you pay for your own wiretap business is the following transaction.

    It is about 10:45 in the morning in an undisclosed city. The apartment is worn down and the furniture mostly consists of milk crates and things found outside of construction sites, much like your typical bachelor pad. A man stands in the midst of the room, knee deep in his shag carpet with a bill in one hand and a phone in the other pressed tightly up against his ear. He appears to be in his late twenties with about five days growth of beard, he taps his foot impatiently as he stands staring hard at the bill, as if that would make the inscrutable charges vanish. The line picks up...
    Operator: Hello, this is [phone company x], how can we help you?
    Man: Yes, I have a question about an item on my phone bill.
    Operator: I'm sure that you do sir, or else you wouldn't be calling us. Could you tell me what the item is?
    Man: Yeah, it's a twenty-five cent surcharge with the code WT next to it.
    Operator (Pauses for a moment): According to our records, that's supposed to be there.
    Man: (Confused) But what is it, I'm looking at last month's bill and it isn't there.
    Operator (again pauses, some typing can be heard): Yes, the charge was added this month.
    Man (a little upset): Yes, but for what.
    Operator (pausing once again, and letting out a loud sigh): For the wiretap sir.
    Man (really upset): The wiretap?
    Operator: Yes sir, the wiretap that the Feds put on your phone last month to monitor you.
    The man then hangs up the phone, tossing it casually onto the couch. He then goes into the kitchen and grabs a bite to eat.
    Of course that's a bit of an exaggeration, the phone company is never that helpful. All right, so this was mostly a joke, deal.

  • Here's what I wrote my Member of Parliament (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ppanon ( 16583 ) on Monday August 16, 2004 @01:14AM (#9977903) Homepage Journal
    Dear Mrs. Fry,

    I recently read the following article online in the Globe & Mail web site and am quite concerned.
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet /story/RTGAM .20040815.wtaps0815/BNStory/National/

    I believe that funding for wiretapping costs should be provided according to the cost-sharing plan that Bell Canada and others propose. There are a number of reasons why I feel their proposal is attractive:
    • This is not a user-pay service in the same way that gasoline taxes are. All canadians benefit from law enforcement activities so why should only telecommunications service users have to pay? This tax would be regressive.
    • I feel that the government contribution should come from general revenue where it can be balanced against other needs and priorities. I believe that privacy is important enough that funding for activities that could violate it should be tightly controlled by our elected representatives. Maintaining funding for wiretapping in the general policing budget will ensure that closer scrutiny is paid to how the money is being spent.
    • A tax on telecommunications service complicates revenue collection, placing the burden on service providers.
    • I like the idea that telecommunications providers would pay for part of the wiretapping costs. By making the service providers pay part of the costs, decreasing their profit margin, it makes it less likely they will try to inflate actual costs and turn the operation into a revenue stream.

    While I sometimes don't agree with some of your stances, I did vote for you in the last election because I felt that, in spite of the scandals the Liberals have had recently, Liberal policy was better than the alternatives available. I hope you will seriously consider this input from one of your constituents.

    Sincerely yours,

    Paul-Andre Panon

  • Hey I know (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cyno ( 85911 ) on Monday August 16, 2004 @01:52AM (#9978064) Journal
    This is great!

    More reason to build a free encrypted internet based voice network. With surcharges, taxes, roaming fees, etc. It will either provide some much needed competition for the telecoms or at least give people an alternatives.

    Though personally I think it should be designed with async in mind since its much more efficient to communicate asynchronously, IMO. Kinda like instant voice messaging..

    And if it were p2p/distributed it would be more difficult for a central authority to request the ability to tap the connections, demand taxes/fees, etc. But governments will get away with anything they want as long as their citizens let them.

  • Where's the news? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Monday August 16, 2004 @04:03AM (#9978431)
    The Globe and Mail is running an interesting story over who should carry the cost of wiretapping

    In the end, the consumer will always pay for being tapped. Some way or another....

    I would prefer to have the costs explicitly listed on the bill. In that case consumers would see what enormous costs the tapping is causing and how little (compared to the costs) results we're getting.

    Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals

    Allow me to laugh. We're not talking about 25 cents. Perhaps this are the costs the police needs to do the actual tapping. Currently providing the capability of tapping makes up 15% of your telco bill. Perhaps it is less for large telcos but for the averade city carrier (in germany) this figure is correct.

    These costs will drive the concentration process in the telco and ISP business. New regulation in germany require ISPs to have email tapping equipment ready for use which must comply certain standards. Those costs 100.000+ $.

    Regards, Martin

  • Fight back (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Graabein ( 96715 ) on Monday August 16, 2004 @04:58AM (#9978593) Journal
    Here's a subversive little list of links everybody should be familiar with:

    Armed with this information, use OpenBSD to set up firewalls with ALTQ packet prioritizing, PF stateful filtering and IPsec secure VPNs between all endpoints.

    Setup Asterisk PBX' behind the firewalls and network them over the VPNs.

    Now let them try to monitor your calls.

    (No, this doesn't help with calls you terminate with an insecure 3rd party, like a VoIP provider gatewaying your calls out to the PSTN. The "P" in PSTN is for "Public", so you need to treat it as completely insecure and act accordingly.)

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