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Wiretapping Made Easier 18

An Anonymous Coward writes "Less than a week after it was decided that virtual child pornography was legal, a bill has been introduced into Congress that makes it easier for wiretaps to be authorized by allowing material constituting or containing child pornography to be valid grounds for requesting a wiretap."
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Wiretapping Made Easier

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  • a bill has been introduced into Congress that makes it easier for wiretaps to be authorized by allowing material constituting or containing child pornography to be valid grounds for requesting a wiretap.

    So that constitutes basically every ISP, I guess.

  • I don't follow...they are proposing legislation, okay got that.

    This legislation allows child pornography or offensive material to be grounds for a wiretap?

    What even does that mean?

    Does the existence of the "material" somewhere in the known universe allow them to tap anyone's wire? (I sure hope not!)

    Or do they only get to tap a wire that is carrying such material? But if they don't have a wiretap yet, how can they know?

    Presumably, the crime they would be trying to gather evidence for is related to the "material"? Yeah?

    :(

    • From the article:

      The bill essentially makes it easier for law enforcement to obtain wiretaps on persons suspected of engaging in or having material constituting or containing child pornography
  • by realgone ( 147744 ) on Friday April 26, 2002 @03:45PM (#3418025)
    ...but I'm not quite sure about what.

    A quick read-through of the bill -- and as bills go, this one is really short, so hop on over and take a look -- makes it seem as if all they've done is add owning/distributing child porn was added to the list of wiretappable crimes. If there's more there, I'm missing it.

    Other than the faint unease I may feel at law enforcement's gradual erosion of our communal privacy, I'm not really getting a Big Brother vibe off this one. But it might be a useful stepping-off point for a /. discussion on wiretaps in general...

  • I'm not sure why this isn't on the front page, but it ought to be.

    Anyways, I have to agree. Although it may be a bit broadscope to say that this would cover all ISP's, the government isn't unlikely to pull it off.

    The thing that pisses me off, though is that this whole "destroy child pornography" bit over-reaches power. Does anyone remember the Fourth Ammendment?
  • Why can't we just have one wiretap law for all types of crimes?
  • There is an interesting article at http://www.alternet.org

    Thought Crimes
    http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID =12959

    Even the Supreme Court recognizes that sexual fantasies -- even about children -- are not necessarily rehearsals for harmful actions.
  • Although I don't like wiretapping I see it neccessary to do something to stop the production of child pornography.

    But we have to keep in mind that law cannot exstinguish the roots of the problem. Sexual repression breeds all kinds of perversions, of which child pornography is one of the things which should not be tolerated IMO. And as long as more natural ways to live sexuality are forbidden by law or social moral also, there remains the feeling of a split conscience.

    If law forbits prostitution for example, then sex has to come out thru other outlets, rape and porn beeing one of them.

Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the pens will multiply instead of disappear.

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