FCC Demands Universities Comply With Wiretap Law

tabdelgawad writes "The New York Times reports that the FCC is requiring universities to upgrade their online systems to comply with the 1994 wiretap law, which would make it easier for law enforcement to monitor communications online. The universities are not objecting on civil rights grounds (the law requires a court order before monitoring), but on cost grounds (upgrades may cost $7 billion). But with the technology infrastructure in place, what happens if congress decides to relax court order requirements in the future 'in their fight against criminals, terrorists and spies?'"

Nice

[Jonnty]

So they have to pay lots of money and reduce their civil rights completly (I don't think any privacy laws are legally binding anymore...) It's got to stop. Unless the court order remains and is completly open, which isn't going to happen, this is just not acceptable. At least I live in Britain, which hasn't got all these civil rights reducing measures...quite yet.

The real question here

[asadodetira]

As technology facilitates eavesdropping and spying on each other, one may well assume that the only reasonable thing to do is to adopt a position of total openness of information for all, with nobody having any secrets to hide. The real question here is...If we were all wiretapped. How many of us would have things to hide?

Re:There is something fundamentally wrong here

[Seumas]

Here's the cut, folks:

Education is a privelege. You can stick a rider to any privelege you want. For example - while we would traditionally believe that we should not be subjected to drug or alcohol tests, searches or fingerprinting without having committed a crime - you can be forced to sign away those "rights" for the privelege of driving (along with protecting your social security number, since it's now usually required for any State ID or driver's license). Likewise, if we classify education as a privelege, we can tack on all the invasion we want. After all, if you don't want to give up those rights to your person - don't drive; if you don't want to give up those rights to your person; don't seek an education.

We can apply this to so many places in society. It's just a matter of redefining expectations and language. Eventually, we'll be able to classify everything you do as a "privelege" rather than a right. And once we've done that, you won't have any "rights" left.

And by then, I guess we won't have any terrorists. Of course, that's because we won't have any self-reliant, free-thinking, anti-authoritarians left, either.

My own insane theory

[pcgamez]

Why doesn't the FCC pay for it? I bet that will get them to have some common sense. I of course realise this means that the cost will still be the same or more. What it will also do is raise more congressional concern as the FCC will have to request that amount.

I don't follow this issue enough, but...

[xigxag]

What's to stop some would-be terrorist from simply encrypting his communications? He and his cohorts could probably use a one time pad so that even if older transmissions were tapped and the alleged terrorist captured, he'd be unable to disclose the old passwords to decode his old conversations.

Further, I imagine that it's possible to multiplex your voice signal with some other innocuous sound-transmission so that it would be impossible to tell if you were on actually on the line or not. Would-be wiretappers would hear nothing but slightly distorted Liza Minelli showtunes. Or am I wrong?

Re:Secure SSH Tunneling

[gullevek]

Actually almost every european country has that. Even Japan. You have an ID (Social Security Number), you have to tell the Police where you live (thats required by law, but I am not sure if it is enforced, I lived two years somewhere else and I never told the police), and you pay redicolous hight taxes.

Media consolidation makes monitoring easier

[Anonymous Coward]

The Carlyle Group: Are they buying your cable TV company (Insight, Casema, ...)?