Government Internet Surveillance Up 369
Harvey Manfrenjensenton writes "According to this story at Newhouse News Service, the assault on Americans' rights known as the Patriot Act, passed by Congress in October, has produced results that are as disturbing -- and rampant -- as could have been anticipated. Law enforcement used to need a court order to tap your phone, read your mail, etc. Now they just need a whim. ISP's and Telcos can barely keep up with the volume of requests by Feds wanting to read your email." EFF's analysis of the Patriot Act is good reading.
No real surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
How can e-mail be evidence? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Well said, but I prefer:
Reading random quotes by activists and great thinkers can be very enlightening, I highly recommend The Quotations Page [quotationspage.com], providing quotes since 1994 - quite inspiring.
Email, email, email.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Right of privacy and the Constitution (Score:4, Interesting)
Findlaw - Rights Retained by the People [findlaw.com]
(emphasis added)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Bad News (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't run an ftp server, never advertised one, never been into any sort of warez, just have a mail server. And I see that in my logs. What the fuck is going on?
Re:Right of privacy and the Constitution (Score:2, Interesting)
Surely the fact that information is sent electronically should mean it is treated no differently from paper or phone calls.
Does the government have the right to open mail addressed to you? Does the government have the right to listen to your phone calls?
The answer is yes of they have "reasonable" grounds to suspect you have or will commit a criminal act.
The solution is not specific legislation or objection based upon medium, but an application of exsiting pronciples to a new meium.
reading my email (Score:2, Interesting)
then i go to yahoo mail....never has happend with any email except from him.
Re:Good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Orwellian??!?!!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Tell us SlashDot Editors... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not joking
Anyone else here feel safe enough to post 'anonymous' or otherwise on what they have been asked for ?
Re:Right of privacy and the Constitution (Score:3, Interesting)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Secure - Free from the risk of being intercepted by unauthorized persons.
There is too much to discuss about this, but it comes down to word "Reasonable". And this changes from person to person.
You find it "Resonable" to trade Privacy for Security. Patriot ACT on that thought was "Reasonable" to some men and women to combat terrorisism.
I find that "Unreasonable". The founding fathers had to deal with "Unreasonable" searchs under Kings Law, they would have no such repeat.
-
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
The real worry... (Score:5, Interesting)
But that gap is going to shrink... as more programmers and database analysts get hired and design methods for extracting the information given to them.
Do you really think the government's insatiable hunger for information is going to diminish? The key to finding terrorists is not in looking at their criminal history, racial profiling or by their favorite books.The key is in finding those who dissent against certain policies of the US and take a best guess at whether they are committed enough to lash out against them that they are willing to take their own life or other's lives in order to acheive attention for their cause.
So think about that the next time you complain about gun laws or taxes or the war on drugs or whether your speeding ticket was unfair. Because when the supply of information is dwarfed by the ability to interpret it, it may be your front door that gets kicked down at three in the morning.
Security through Obscurity? (Score:3, Interesting)
If they're sending so many subpoenas that ISPs can't keep up, then doesn't that make it harder for the really important requests to go through? I mean, if this keeps up, then won't it give real terrorists a "buffer zone" of time in which they can send unencrypted emails and act on them before the feds can even get the emails from the ISPs?
Priority Problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Something similiar will probably happen with this. The companies wont be able to keep up with the demand and will probably close down or get the tech indistry to bribe congress into repelling (or at least limit) the law since they are loosing money doing this.
Re:USA PATRIOT Act (Score:2, Interesting)
So if the FBI finds out you have met somebody they're investigating for a crime, you want them to have the right to search your house, without asking a judge for permission, just because you might possibly conceivably possess some evidence they could use against that person?
Too often people cast this debate in terms of whether we are for or against the police. The fact is, the police aren't doing their job if they don't do everything allowed by law that might help their investigations. I don't fault the FBI for taking advantage of this law -- I fault Congress for passing it, and the White House idiot for signing it. It's the job of these people to set the limits on the police in way that's consistent with American values, not Fascist police state values.
how law enforcement works (Score:1, Interesting)
Okay, you want to know how law enforcement works?
Recently I ordered a substance over the internet that had been legal until sometime last year, when it was vaguely made illegal under an "analogue" act (something that I, and various lawyers I contacted later, were not aware of). The same internet site also sells another substance that is tightly controlled.
Well, when my package arrived, so did a US customs official and at least four local cops. They questioned me for 20 minutes in my foyer. They were physically threatening, verbally misleading, and they could not tell me what crime I had committed. They did suggest a crime (ordering the tightly-controlled substance), and they were intent on getting me confess to that.
They entered my apartment without a warrant, and proceeded to sieze property. They took lots of statements, and accused me of being a drug dealer based on the fact that I listen to techno. They assumed they would find a drug lab, and they did not.
Later I talked to some lawyers, and they said that I could "probably" get the search suppressed. Probably?!
Nothing has come of it so far, most likely because they have no evidence of what I ordered. Their entire operation was illegal, and they went out of their way to subvert the rights that I have. If I had been less forthright in asserting them, I easily could have confessed to a crime that I did not commit, landed in court, or in jail. If they had gotten a confession, or found what they were looking for, they would have prosecuted me, warrant or not.
Original quote from the Devil's Dictionary (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:feds asking isp's for access? (Score:3, Interesting)
sniffers on an isp's network and read anyones email, without the need to ask
the ISP's or Telco's.
Sure they could, however nothing they gathered would have been admissible in
court. In addition, if they were caught, it would lead to severe punishment
under the former laws. Illegal wiretapping and conducting an illegal
investigation used to be very strictly enforced, even if the prepatrator was
the FBI. Now, they can gather whatever they wish, use it in a court of law if
anything ever turns up and not have to prove that you did anything wrong to
get their attention in the first place. Whatever happens to us, remember, we
deserve it because we didn't stop it.
SealBeater
Re:It is not about reading your e-mail (Score:3, Interesting)
[paranoid mode] They're also working to crack down on spam. I wonder if the two events are coinciding -- it seems like the more spam one receives, the more a pain in the ass it is for investigators to wade through the bullshit, and the more likely they are to miss something.
Think about this: someone sends an email to someone with the subject "HERBAL VIAGRA -- STAY HARD FOR HOURS!", though the body of the message is something desirable to the FBI. Considering after a while of wading through crap, they would just ignore something with said subject line, thereby potentially missing something crucial.
If they really are planning to crack down on spam, this may be the motive behind it.
[/paranoid mode]