FBI's Unknown Eavesdropping Network 362
An anonymous reader writes "Building off the design mandates of CALEA, the FBI has constructed a 'point-and-click surveillance system' that creates instant wiretaps on almost any communications device. A thousand pages of restricted documents released under the Freedom of Information Act were required to determine the veracity of this clandestine project, Wired News reports. Called the Digital Collection System Network, it connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet-telephony providers and cellular companies. It is intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure. From the article: 'FBI wiretapping rooms in field offices and undercover locations around the country are connected through a private, encrypted backbone that is separated from the internet. Sprint runs it on the government's behalf. The network allows an FBI agent in New York, for example, to remotely set up a wiretap on a cell phone based in Sacramento, California, and immediately learn the phone's location, then begin receiving conversations, text messages and voicemail pass codes in New York. With a few keystrokes, the agent can route the recordings to language specialists for translation.'"
And it actually works? (Score:5, Interesting)
Brilliant! (Score:3, Interesting)
Poor man's Echelon (Score:5, Interesting)
My take is this: Privacy is dead. The only way to keep the playing field level is to make sure everyone has access...
Warrant? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Poor man's Echelon (Score:3, Interesting)
When you've managed to capture your whole neighborhood's phone traffic and can pick keywords out of fifty or a hundred people's phone traffic, (which NaturallySpeaking won't do without training) call me.
Dictatorship? (Score:1, Interesting)
People are making jokes about this! There's plenty of evidence of corruption; it's not like this is the only evidence.
Re:Audit findings (Score:1, Interesting)
J Edgar Hoover would have wet dreams over this system. Spying on anyone you want without any backlash. If you cant tell who is logged in, nobody will know who is spying on who. Anyone who speaks out against government policy may find their past communications used against them.
"Give me 6 lines written by an innocent man and I will find something to hang him" - Cardinal Richelieu
Re:Well, that's the problem (Score:1, Interesting)
Personally, I HATE the idea of warrantless eavesdropping so please don't think that I am all for them. I just don't want this to turn into the typical 'W' is evil.
Mercenaries used instead (Score:2, Interesting)
Only if they convince the military to go along with it.
They only need to keep the military at bay - or overseas. Blackwater and the other private armies are more than sufficient to do the job of disarming average citizens. Google Blackwater and Katrina to get a glimpse of what went down in NOLA.
The mercenaries only require a nice big paycheck and don't carry baggage like honor and loyalty and dedication to the country that might make them hesitate.
What should we do? (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember it different (Score:2, Interesting)
As far as your statement about us not being like the USSR yet, well, the political left is working on it, just be patient.
Oh, for the bygone days of yore: Watergate (Score:4, Interesting)
The five gentlemen who were busted after an alert security guard noticed several locks tape down were installing wiretaps [wikipedia.org] in the Democratic National Commitee's headquarters during the '72 presidential election.
How low-tech! They actually had to go attach wires to physical telephones!
Now, I'm not saying that this newfangled system would really be used to affect the outcome of the '98 election, but if it were done, it would be undetectable. No amount of alert security guards would catch the perpetrators.
I'm old enough to have lived through Watergate; the whole nation was in crisis.
Re:Audit findings (Score:3, Interesting)
but there is another program run by another TLA agency.
It's a really slick program. You have one guess as to the agency.