FBI Quietly Forms Secretive Net-Surveillance Unit 130
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from CNET: "CNET has learned that the FBI has formed a Domestic Communications Assistance Center, which is tasked with developing new electronic surveillance technologies, including intercepting Internet, wireless, and VoIP communications. 'The big question for me is why there isn't more transparency about what's going on?' asks Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco. 'We should know more about the program and what the FBI is doing. Which carriers they're working with — which carriers they're having problems with. They're doing the best they can to avoid being transparent.'"
Justice Department Budget request (Score:5, Informative)
This appears to be the Justice department budget request for the project.
http://www.justice.gov/jmd/2012factsheets/docs/fy12-national-security.pdf [justice.gov]
Time to spend more time improving Tor
https://www.torproject.org/ [torproject.org]
Re:Submitted by an Anonymous Reader (Score:2, Informative)
> Who is, I suspect, no longer anonymous to the FBI...
Neither am I. For real. Here's one product they use to monitor internet traffic on targets: Narus Insight [narus.com].
They already have all the capabilities discussed in the article, which is itself overly dramatic. Take a look at the product page for that software and see for yourself.
It's not about warrants, or lack thereof (Score:5, Informative)
This center isn't about obtaining intelligence without a warrant, it's about executing a warrant that the FBI has obtained. An old (and I mean old) wiretap involved nothing more than a wire recorder and a pair of alligator clips at Ma Bell's central office. This center appears to be tasked with devising ways to execute surveillance warrants when the suspect is using technology that doesn't currently have "hooks" to tap.
What good is a packet trace if you can't turn the hex into useful data? How do you handle roaming VOIP? Are there currently "hooks" in the system for intercepting cellular data? You get the idea...
Now, none of that means that this technology won't be put to nefarious ends after it's developed, but the stated intent is benign enough.