Surveillance Is on the Rise, Straining Carriers

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The number of telephone wiretaps from 2000 to 2004 authorized by state and federal judges increased by 44%, the Wall Street Journal reports, in part because of a rise in terrorism investigations after 9/11, and because the Patriot Act extended surveillance to Internet providers. All the surveillance activity can put a strain on carriers. 'Smaller telecom companies in particular have sought help from outsiders in order to comply with the court-ordered subpoenas, touching off a scramble among third parties to meet the demand for assistance', the WSJ reports, adding, 'Government surveillance has intensified even more heavily overseas, particularly in Europe. Some countries, such as Italy, as well as government and law-enforcement agencies, are able to remotely monitor communications traffic without having to go through the individual service providers. To make it easier for authorities to monitor traffic, some also require registering with identification before buying telephone calling cards or using cybercafes.'"

So that's why Verizon is going after Google

[scooter.higher]

They're trying to offset the costs of the wiretaps, and taking a swing at Google, who isn't playing nice with government requests, at the same time.

Anything can make sense if you look for the conspiracy angle.

Strained Carriers

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was going to be about mailmen with hernias.

thats why

[dotpavan]

I have resorted to pigeons. This post was sent via a pigeon which flew to India where my outsourced-poster hit the submit button

Funny enough, the top of my screen...

[nathan s]

...says:

"The next Slashdot story is visible early to free day pass visitors; sponsored by Verizon Business."

Amusing timing.

The positive new solution...

[db32]

Ok...I have had about enough of this spying nonsense. Lets just admit that its going to happen, noone is going to stop it and just deal with the future. First I propose that since the government is digging so deep into the telco world to spy on everyone, why don't they just deliver the final blow to the industry? Lets just go with government owned communications infrastructure.

We won't have to deal with these dirty money grubbing telcos anymore (see Bellsouth's behaviour over free wifi, or Verizon's wanting more money from the internet content providers)
We won't have service that is any worse. (Government work isn't typically much worse than what we get now)
The prices will go down. (No profit margins to maintain)
This way the government isn't crushing the smaller business for the big telcos by mandating wiretaps. Now its equal for everyone involved.

Disclaimer: This is not meant to be serious, I know some have a problem reading into things like this. Thank you.