US Policy Would Allow Government Access to Any Email 516
An anonymous reader writes "National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is currently helping to draft a new Cyber-Security Policy that could make the debate over warrantless wiretaps seem like a petty squabble. The new policy would allow the government to access to the content of any email, file transfer, or web search."
Amendment IV to the Constitution (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Sounds like FUD (Score:5, Informative)
PGP + Constitution (Score:5, Informative)
It's in the New Yorker's print edition (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sounds like FUD (Score:3, Informative)
Since none of these offer the full story, only proof that such a story does exist (or will), it is hard to say how much FUD is in the Raw Story article.
Re:At least they won't be able to mass-scan... (Score:5, Informative)
The main obstacle to mass encryption these days is Microsoft. I expect to be skating over Hell's frozen wasteland before Microsoft adopts encryption in Outlook/Hotmail.
I've been encrypting and signing mail in Outlook Express and Outlook for years. The certificates are installed via XENROLL.DLL or CERTENROLL.DLL. Windows actually has a really good encrytion API.
If you go here [comodo.com] you can get a free e-mail certificate. Once you install it to the cryptography store you can sign and encrypt mail in any Microsoft email program. If you use the Windows Live Mail [live.com] application you can encrypt messages in Hotmail too.
Re:No sources (Score:4, Informative)
Has anybody actually SEEN the draft so that we can comment on it intelligently without relying on "I think the US government is bad, so I'm going to assume they're doing horrible things"?
The problem with this reasoning is that it doesn't take much effort to know that the US federal government has done bad things. It's not a matter of conjecture. The US has spied on law abiding citizens, check out MLK, done medical experiments on people without their approval, and has forcibly sterilized people. The US has also broken a number of treaties.
FalconRe:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
No, it doesn't. See sneak and peek [uga.edu] warrants.
You can try encrypting all of your files but if they can gain physical access to the machine(s) in question without you knowing about it then it's a simple matter to install a keylogging device and obtain any passwords needed to decrypt your data.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
If you RTFA, it's from The New Yorker. Or, at least it was in TFA when I read it earlier today before Slashdot posted it.
I'm too lazy to check to see about the link now, but fortunately, since I thought the article interesting, I saved it. So here it is [googlepages.com]. It's an 18 page PDF, The proposal is mentioned on page 11.
Re:Impeach Them Already (Score:4, Informative)
Laugh while you can.
Your sorry assed demagogues have succeeded in squandering international goodwill towards the U.S., sold military technology [findarticles.com] to China in order to insure low prices at Wal-Mart and guaranteed that not only *you*, but your children (if you stop doing the hand dance long enough to have any), and their children's chidren will be paying the price [nationalpriorities.org] for their stupidity.
The long and short of it laughing boy, is that *your* party attempted to impeach a sitting president over a stain on a blue dress and failed, but have sufficiently befuddled the nation with misdirection and divisiveness that we are failing to impeach a president and his cronies who have lied to us [bushlies.net], lead us into a quagmire [findarticles.com], are shredding the constitution [truthdig.com] at every turn, and who felt the need to put safeguards in place [antiwar.com] to prevent them from being charged as war criminals like his father [deoxy.org] was.
So, yeah, good ahead and laugh, I for one will shed a tear.
Re:google web history (Score:3, Informative)
have you ever looked at your google web history [google.com]? yikes.
Nope, it asks me to signin, and I don't have an account.
FalconRe:At least they won't be able to mass-scan... (Score:5, Informative)
There is a firefox plugin Firegpg [tuxfamily.org] that you can use with gmail to encrypt, sign, and decrypt email.
I dunno if it works with yahoo....it might...
Re:Or You Could Go With the Reagan/Bush/Rove/Chene (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:2, Informative)
If you don't "allow" the police into your home, they'll simply break in. They will break into your computer the same way, if they can. If they can't, that just tough on them. In the UK they don't have the 5th amendment, so they can legally torture the password out of you there.
If encryption should become widespread, then the possession of encryption software or other encryption tools will simply be added to the incredibly long list of 'you may not legally possess or deal with' items. 75% or more of all prisoners today are there directly or indirectly, because of the violation of one of a long list of such laws. Illegal substances and weapons are presently major categories. DMCA makes possession of or dealing in certain kinds of information a crime. When someone robs or burgles to get money for drugs, that burglar or robber, if convicted is also part of this number. Adding encryption to this long list would be only a small addition to this list of such laws.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)