CALEA update 225
The article is actually an AP article, and this is a temporary URL but will probably remain available throughout today. If it's not available, just search your favorite news site which carries an AP feed.
Background: In 1994, the FBI, complaining about pedophiles and terrorists on the internet, got Congress to pass a law requiring all telecommunications providers to make their networks easily tappable. One example of the necessity for such which is still trotted out by the FBI is solving kidnappings - "What if your child was kidnapped?". However, try as I might, I can't think of any situation in which a wiretap (which has to be placed on a known entity) would help locate a missing child. If you know who's got the kid...go get him.
The primary stated reason for the law was that the telcoms were upgrading to digital from analog, and therefore the men in black couldn't just hook up an alligator clip to the wires anymore... the law was explicitly stated to NOT expand law-enforcement access to communications but simply make sure that they could access digital phone lines. The telecommunications companies fought the law until Congress added $500,000,000 in government subsidies for them, when they promptly shut up.
Unfortunately (but expectedly), the FBI has interpreted the law as granting them free rein to tap anything at any time. The FCC is granted the power to implement CALEA - and the current FCC commissioners would make Big Brother proud. So the FBI has sought and received, as of August 30, substantial additional tapping powers - they will now receive the current location of cell-phone users during the tap, the ability to listen in on conference calls even if the tapped party has left the conversation, and a couple of other minor enhancements which slowly yet steadily erode your privacy.
More important, the FBI has also sought the ability to tap packet-switched communications - by which I mean, of course, the big bad Internet. This authority, never enacted in law, has nevertheless been granted by the FCC, to be implemented by the telcoms no later than September 2001.
Recently there have been stories about companies in Russia having to provide the ability for police to tap internet communications. U.S. folks laughed at those poor bastards, living in a surveillance state. The only difference between Russia and the U.S. is: the Russians are more upfront about their surveillance.
See EPIC's wiretap page for more. -- michael
What a waste of $500b (Score:4)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI reached a first-of-its-kind agreement
enabling telecommunications companies to use computer software made by
Nortel Networks to assist law enforcement agencies in conducting lawfully
authorized wiretapping.
The agreement calls for Nortel, a major supplier of telecommunications
equipment, to provide certain software to its carrier customers. Nortel will
waive the license fees.
The 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act authorized
$500 million for the purpose of reimbursing the telecommunications industry for
its costs in cooperating with law enforcement agencies in wiretapping.
``Carriers can now begin taking steps to correct technological impediments
within their networks that currently prevent law enforcement from being able to
carry out court-ordered electronic surveillance directed at suspected
criminals and terrorists,'' Attorney General Janet Reno said in a statement.
The telecommunication carrier Ameritech also is a party to the agreement. FBI
Director Louis Freeh said the bureau is working toward finalizing similar
reimbursement agreements with other carriers and manufacturers.
I am really frightened. (Score:1)
Makes a helluva case for strong encryption, though.
I just wish the government would go away...
Hrmmm...didn't work.
Now what?
Re:What a waste of $500b (Score:2)
I didn't realize that a lack of monitoring and Big Brother control was an 'impediment' that needed to be 'corrected'.
What are these people smoking?
A few more months... (Score:1)
Already we have things like PGPfone, but, well, to be perfectly honest, it really sounds like you're using a cheap microphone hooked up to the Soundblaster on your PC. Anyone know of anything in this realm that actually works well?
-=-=-=-=-
About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:5)
As far as tapping digital lines... It should be allowed, but only with a court order. Just like it is with analog lines. Sometimes, there is a justifiable reason for a line to be tapped. Think suspected drug dealer here. The problem is not with the FBI tapping lines, it is with thee frequencey of which lines are tapped. Court orders for line tapping are given out too frequently and with too broad of a spectrum of reasons. Call your representatives in Congress and express your concern with this issue, they will listen (on occassion).
--
Matt Singerman
What makes you think... (Score:1)
Now everybody can have a look see.... (Score:3)
-- Moondog
Why do the enforcement agencies need more powers (Score:1)
It wouldnt be TOO easy, but it'd be doable. I agree that they may have to tap communications occasionally, but it should be harder than just phoning up an ISP and saying "open back door #145, we'll show you a warrent later"
What about proxies? (Score:4)
Specifically...remember back in the "good old days" that penet.fi was one of the first host to allow some degree of anonymous access? After someone successfully sued in Finish court for the identity of one of the anonymous e-mailers, the service was shut down to prevent other people from having the same breach in privacy.
What if I ran a proxy service that would allow people to surf the web or other TCP/IP services anonymously?
Since I'm not a telecommunications provider receiving some federal funding...does that mean if I throw out my DHCP/DNS/IP logs every night I'm free and clear? Is there any part of this law that says I NEED to keep a backlog of this information so when the FBI comes knocking I can point out the TRUE identity of someone using my service?
I know there are several proxies out there right now but I do not know if any of them keep or toss information like this and I'm very curious to know if there's anything to mandate logging.
Personally...if I do run a proxy service...I'll probably play dumb and if some federal government want to pay for some training classes well then maybe I'll consider learning how to use the logging features of my proxy software.
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"Roving" Wiretaps (Score:2)
That's not really an issue for the FBI, which does not wish to be bothered with quaint notions of only surveilling a small number of specific individuals after legitimate cause has been established for each (as evidenced by their lobbying for "roving wiretap" powers [cdt.org]).
/.
Similar proposals in the UK - Demon ISP response (Score:1)
They object that it will be expensive and impractical to provide the required level of access, and in any case the average PC Plod will need a lot of education in using the intercepts, which Demon don't have the time to give.
Paul.
Re:What makes you think... (Score:1)
--
Matt Singerman
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:3)
Choose 1:
[ ] Drug Free America
[ ] Free America
Remember - you only get 1 choice.
What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:1)
To tap, or not to tap (Score:2)
1) Wire tapping has been of great service to law enforcemnt in the past, providing much needed evidence or information leading to much needed evidence. Say there's this kidnapper, and you don't know where he is. So you tap his girlfriend. The kidnapper, learning nothing from "Cop Shows 101" calls said girlfriend. Trace the call, find the kidnapper. Case solved.
2) Encryption Encryption Encryption. Wasn't there an arguement about 4096 bit on
3) Why are you worried? are you a criminal? Do you associate with criminals? Do you have something to hide? Then why should they tap you?
It's this last point that is the real worry. It's not the ability to tap everything, it's the abuse of the ability that is the problem. So the question really is not, "hey, to tap or not to tap?" but rather "is the FBI mature enough to use their new power appropriately?"
Honestly, they could be sitting in plumbers van accross the street from you right now. Buy they're not, are they? They're probably parked at my house.
And isn't there some law about not being able to use information against you that was discovered while looking for something else?
Praise for the man that invented the preveiw button.
Solution (Score:2)
Re:What about proxies? (Score:1)
However, today's world government doesn't seem to be respecting free speech. So we have two choices - do it anyway, or cower like sheep. After all, we have the right - that's why they're called rights.
but what about... (Score:1)
Candidate B is running against candidate A. Since either A is currently in office, he will secretly issue a wiretap to get any kind of dirt on B that it possible.
Think it's rediculious? This is what Richard Nixon essentialy did, albeit in a far more crude manner.
There is also the situation when people are engaging in a legal activity, although one that the government frowns upon, such as a major political rally, like the Million Man March. Perfectly legal (preedom os association is prodected under the First Amendment), but the government really did not like it happening. Imagine if the government had been able to get specific details from a convenient wiretap, or was able to pull it out of private e-mail, and was then able to set up police in such a way as to effectively block the march. I think that issues like this is what this is all about.
--
Matt Singerman
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:1)
I totally agree with you on this - while I personally do not use drugs, and I strongly encourage all people I know not to use them, I believe that many illegal substances, such as hemp, marijuana, and ecstacy should be legal and controlled. It was just a hypothetical situation.
--
Matt Singerman
Re:What about proxies? (Score:1)
I think in about five years you're finally going to find a bunch of millionaire geeks with nothing better to do with their money starting one up.
There may be piles of gold sitting in the jungle in Phillipines, but there's a lot of $$ sitting in random bank accounts collecting dust too.
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:1)
Who's watching the watchmen?
Re:but what about... (Score:1)
It may be ridiculous, and it may be morally wrong... But I received some good advice as a child when I wanted to begin my first diary:
"Never write anything down that you don't want somebody to read."
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:3)
in new york city, they arrest people for jaywalking because the mayor says it improves the "quality of life". lots of people agree with him. what if citizens in the future feel that complete monitoring of their lives increases their safety? what if the government just decides it's in our best interests to be monitored?
any legislation or policy which makes it easier for the government to invade the lives of the public is BAD. b-a-d bad.
Re:What makes you think... (Score:1)
I have a reasonable right to expect that my privacy be honoured, and I don't expect that right to be breached without good reason. I expect the government to enforce that right, not breach it itself, unless I willingly, freely and knowingly choose to use a non-private network. The fact that the wires are owned by a joint stock company doesn't effect that.
jsm
Encrypt encrypt encrypt (Score:4)
If internet communications are routinely strongly encrypted all this Big Brother business would become moot. To be sure there are legitimate reasons for the feds to snoop on people, but such a power will be abused (either officialy or by "rouge" agents)
Also this is fundamentaly different from tapping phone conversations in that more and more transactions now take place over the net. Net surveilance would not only include person-to-person communication, but also financial transactions, purchasing habits, reading habits etc etc.
It seems to me that the feds don't really have a compelling reason for this otherwise they would be able to come up with a better reason than the tired old Terrorists/Pedophiles/"Think of the Children" justification.
Have you actualy ever seen any terrorists --Brazil
Criminals and Terrorists (Score:1)
Politicians seem to want people to think the Net is full of terrorists and pedophiles, so they can regulate it as they want. I hope people won't believe them, and we will complain as we should.
Land of the free, home of the slave. (Score:2)
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
This may soon become the national motto in the very near future. Let it now be known (to any who may have had doubts before) that we live in the Orwellian age. If this is the way it is to be I would rather be dead.
WAR IS PEACE (American forces killing to keep the peace)
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY (What we thought was free speech is now a trap to catch people who say what they think, and think THE WRONG THINGS)
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (What is called education is actually programming intended to make us moronic consumers, keeping the economy strong)
Not only is BIG BROTHER watching, he is waiting too.
There's stuff you can do (Score:4)
<rant>
And most importantly, don't forget. A lot of people feel ignored online because a paper letter still counts more than an email to a politician. That's because the pol expects the emailer to have forgotten about this by Election Day -- not so easy to do if you're so steamed you can write a letter, lick a stamp and send it. (Or so the theory goes.)
The FCC is appointed by the President -- tell him (or, better yet, the party he's from) that they won't get your vote as long as shenanigans like these persist. And do it, too. Don't buy that "you'll throw your vote away" crap -- if 89% of this country didn't vote for the Democrats or Republicans, how much of a waste is that? IMO, you're probably wasting your vote if you do vote for the two major parties, since both of them probably represent many, many views you find repellant, no matter who you are.
A candidate that forms his opinions based on an overriding philosophy that you agree with may still come down on the wrong side, but with less frequency, and probably not nearly as wholeheartedly as a politician who just checks the party scoresheet -- most of which was probably written by the biggest contributors this week.
I hate to sound so vitriolic, but the ineffectiveness in American politics is the result of the apathy of its citizens -- fostered by those currently in power that characterize our system as "imperfect, but the best we can do."
Well, half-truths are half-right -- it's certainly imperfect, but the two parties that are exactly as different as Coke and Pepsi that is, as different as they need to be to convince you there is any difference at all. Small voter turnouts only help them engineer the elections better -- turn out in force, and vote for the candidate you feel most comfortable with, even if you think he'll only get ten votes.
Treat politicians like employees, or better yet, like vendors -- there's plenty of vendors. If we do, maybe we'll get some customer service. phil
</rant>
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:1)
But history has shown the bad guys are almost always a step ahead of the government...
What do you care if the government overhears your plans to have dinner with your wife, or even have sex with her? If it helps society in some small way, and they're bored enough to listen to me... Give 'em a show I say!
Technology will obsolete this within 5-10 years (Score:2)
Not eveyrone will use it of course, especially ordinary punters. But I sure will, and lots of you will, and definitely those who have something to hide and the brains to survive.
What a waste of $500M.
--
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:3)
I get so tired of people who haven't ever been a member of a disapproved minority thinking that everything is wonderful in America. This is how America oppresses people -- by making sure that 80% of the citizens never see it or experience it. It works wonderfully well too, especially when combined with TV brainwashing, the whitewashed Amercian history taught in schools, and the puff pieces that pass for journalism these days.
Occasionally, the mask is torn -- Vietnam, Watergate, S&L scandal, Rodney King, etc. But folks just go right back to sleep after the media circus like good little sheep. Gaahhh!
What about this? (Score:3)
Re:To tap, or not to tap (Score:1)
As far as the law about not being able to use information against you that was discovered while looking for something else, I think that's only for purposes of evidence. There's nothing that says that information couldn't be leaked to the press to put more pressure on you. Ruin a guy's life, it could. Say a pediatrician gets investigated for illegal prescriptions or something and they discover the guy has a penchant for teen porn. If that info gets leaked, the innocence of the suspect doesn't matter anymore - he's been branded.
The scary thing about tapping really is the rules that govern how the information obtained is handled. If you could insure that privacy is maintained (only info relative to the purpose of the tap is ever revealed or used), I don't think I'd have a problem with it. Maybe. Man, I sure like my privacy, though.
2-q's: Canadians/others? & Central discussion area (Score:2)
This almost leads to an ask.slashdot question: What tools (whether legal or not) are available for the following:
--Telephone encryption
--Cell phone encryption
--Anonymous web movement
--Email encryption (pgp/gpg obviously)
--Cell phone location hiding
--etc. etc.
Obviously, which are "uncrackable" (I don't consider 40-bit anything to be uncrackable with the kind of computing power a governments budget can come up with)
I think what's needed (perhaps as part of Your Rights Online) is a large discussion forum in the style of the old BBS's with message bases so that we can have a solid on-line location to find answers to questions such as these!
Securityportal.net, hackernews.com, etc. etc. are great, but it's *so* hard to go around the web and find any real solutions to invasions of our privacy... A central discussion place would be nice.
Anyways, just a handful of thoughts.
Personally, I'd rather be innocent of a crime, but thrown in jail for protecting my privacy, than living "free" but being watched by some "authority".
mindslip
Invisible people. (Score:1)
Using a few little tools, you change the MAC address of your card.
You can use those freebie introductory access CDs from the front of any magazine to contact almost anywhere..
The IP address will never be the same, especially if you use different ISP's to connect all the time.
The encryption factor takes care of them not being able to actually READ the contents...
What's the point of this new power??
It's like legislating that you now have the power to breath. It doesn't achieve much, because you could do it all along.. It doesn't get you anything extra useful.
Unless, of course, you've got one of those nice PIII chips, and forget to alter the serial..
Malk.
Re:To tap, or not to tap (Score:1)
And isn't there some law about not being able to use information against you that was discovered while looking for something else?
The law exists but if the crime is worthy enough in the eyes of the law it'd be pretty easy to work around. They're surveilling you for suspicion of cocaine trafficing and find out that you're also a nefarious member of an child pornography ring. This really really annoys the feds, many of them have children. They probably can't do much right off the bat. Soon after a tip is generated that you're involved with sexually exploiting the underage and the next court order authorizes a wire/net tap that covers it, a later tap reveals the same information.
The end result is that you're in jail and you deserved it, but the law was bent or mangled to put you there.
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:1)
Besides... Completely denying the law enforcement agencies these monitoring tools is no more or less restrictive and comprimising than the lack of privacy issues you people are so worried about.
Re:To tap, or not to tap (Score:1)
No, that is not the question. Look at this scenerio: Suppose the FBI is `mature enough' today. That is no guarantee they will remain `mature enough' as administrations and personnel gradually change over the years.
An effective privacy safeguard does not depend on handing out bully powers to a group and then depend on the potential bully remaining `mature enough' not to abuse his powers.
Re:What about proxies? (Score:1)
One of the things that Gibson had as his backdrop for his world were the offshore data farms.. One of the few things he predicted that hasn't popped up in the mainstream yet, but it will.
I think off-shore data farms will be mainly targeted at big corporations who need to save data that they "officially" don't have.... can you say Microsoft's internal email? Major tobacco companies' r&d data on the new strain of genetically altered crops? Even smaller countries who need to store data...
I think we'll see little fortresses built up on abandoned off-shore oil rigs with their own security in the real and cyber worlds...
and then come the cowboys.... I can't wait to jack in.
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:1)
But, as long as anti-drug laws exist, we can't go about making it harder for police to enforce them or we might as well be taking all their authority.
The way to fight this is to repeal the anti-drug laws, not cripple the law enforcement. If you take away their ability to uphold the laws because of bad laws, you make it harder for them to uphold 'good laws'.
I remember someone saying, but I can't remember who, Heinlein probably, that if you can't enforce a law, don't pass it, otherwise you just lessen your authority in eyes of the people who will wonder which other laws you're incapable of enforcing. (very rough paraphrase.)
So yes, the drug laws are pretty stupid, but we can't blame it on the cops, or handicap them because of it, or it hurts all of us.
Ahem. Define "deserve" please. (Score:2)
Secondly, there are those who are maliciously accused of crimes-with-victims, who are actually innocent but are just assumed to be guiltydue to Satanic Panic, the belief that "women/children never lie about being abused," or some combination thereof. A close friend of mine's father was accused of sexual abuse by my friend's psychotic alcoholic mother, and damn near had his life ruined even though he hadn't done anything and my friend steadfastly maintained that he hadn't done anything of the sort to her. This has actually become a depressingly common tactic in custody battles. Imagine, if you will, being a non-custodial father and having every communication between yourself and your children "supervised" or tapped and having some very misguided "experts" misinterpret perfectly innocent statements as signs that you are a child molestor. DON'T LAUGH. It happens more often than you think. And it is a *major* problem.
Then, there are folks like me, who are dead if there is ever another McCarthy-type situation in the USA. Like I've said before, the FBI's probably got a file on me, but it hasn't ruined my life yet. I'm probably in their "harmless anarchist" bin right now.
Re:To tap, or not to tap (Score:1)
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:1)
I am sorry there even 'are' disapproved minorities, but I don't think that is the issue here. Citizens ARE sheep, and I'm willing to bet they aren't all members of the majority either... But this isn't what I'm discussing here.
You mention Watergate, Rodney King... sounds like what you are looking for is accountability. Exactly out of what thin air would you like the law enforcement agencies to get the information, or proof as you will, to bring these things to a head?
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:1)
Hamish
Re:What about proxies? (Score:1)
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:1)
You can have freedom or you can have safety. Don't insult my intelligence by asking for both.
It's Worse Than You Think (Score:3)
2 Things:
1. The FBI wants to tape the first 10 seconds of every call, and store it in an archive.
They want these tapes "just in case" they need to monitor conversations that happened in the past.
They can do this very easily because CALEA allows the feds to log into a switch and electronically listen to any conversation they want to, since the information will be sent straight from the switch to the FBI office over a high speed fiber connection.
Previously the Feds had to attach something physically to the wire to listen in, now they just telnet to the switch and have complete access!
2. It's not just Nortel that's providing the software. Lucent, Ericsson, and every other telephone switch provider in America is required to have this functionality by December 1999.
If they do not comply, they will be heavily fined by the government.
Lucent switches, the core of the Bell network, will have this functionality by October 1999.
That's next month!
We have to do something about this now!
-- Rose Kennedy (A former telecom switch programmer)
Re:What a waste of $500b (Score:1)
--
Drug Dealers, Terrorists, and Children (Score:5)
At the height of the War on Drugs, it seemed that the fastest way to get something passed was to say that it was designed to thwart drug dealers. Now that the American public has grown a little more skeptical of this rhetoric, we've moved on to terrorists. Terrorists are the new boogeymen -- we must do whatever it takes to stop them. You, the citizen, need to forget the Constitution for a while because we, your leaders, are trying to fight terrorists.
We did this with McCarthy (sp?), too. The Reds had to be stopped -- First Amendment be damned. Haven't we learned? What is the next boogeyman? Will it be those porn-downloading, foul-mouthed Anonymous Cowards on the internet?
And then there's legislation for "the children". Long after we've come to our senses with "Commies", "Drug Dealers", and "Terrorists", we'll still be passing stupid laws to "protect the children". It's too dangerous politically to oppose anything cloaked in a "protect the children" argument. It inspires a nice emotional knee-jerk response in the voters and shuts down the higher reasoning and skepticism functions of their brains.
I'm not denying the presence of drug dealers or terrorists in our world today, but I'm tired of leaders who can't come up with better ways to protect me than to force me to give up freedoms and privacy. It has the characteristics of a power-grab disguised as "protection". That is not "protection", it is "manipulation".
If this the only protection they can offer, I prefer to watch out for myself, thanks.
Sorry for the essay. I'll go back to work now.
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:1)
No, I'm not saying the FBI does this. I'm not saying they would even want to do this. But if the power is there, without any safeguards, it can be used against you. That's why the police are required to get a warrant for a wiretap. They must have a warrant to enter your home, which describes exactly what they are searching for. Sure, they might catch a few more criminals that way, but at the cost of trampling everyone else's rights. Not worth it.
Re:To tap, or not to tap (Score:1)
Hamish
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:2)
This is well known to everyone. Email are postcards, any discussion is public, and from a privacy perspective just about anything you do on the Internet should be considered to be done in public, naked, and with people reading your thoughts. Unless you encrypt it. Then you are safe. Really safe, safer then you could EVER be without crypotology. Safer in printing your deepest secrets on the first page of the New York Times then if you should go to remotest spot of deepest siberia and whisper them into the wind.
By extension, consider that the FBI/NSA knows this as well. So too do the "terrophiles" (generic term for unquestionably bad people to must be stopped at any cost to freedom).
Consider: Who is using encryption today?
People who know they need it - The terrophiles.
Who is not using encryption today?
The common man.
Who is impeded in his use of cryptography by the FUD and complication campaigns enacted to the maximum of its power by the American regime?
The common man.
Who could get ahold of and use as strong cryptos as they like even if they were outlawed completely?
The terrophiles.
See a pattern here? Asking yourself who the American regime really is interested in spying on? If not, did you, by any chance, grow up on the ruins of Trantor?
-
Gov't must accept the death of wiretapping. (Score:1)
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:1)
The real problem is that this doesn't look like an invasion of privacy problem. But this is simply a small chink in the amror of personal privacy (or another straw in the camel's back).
As freedom loving people, we should strive to fight any infringement on our privacy, no matter how small, since a number of small infringements can combine to create a big problem.
Why am I worried? (Score:1)
Am I a criminal? Do I associate with criminals? Do I have something to hide?
For me, the honest answer is 'yes', thus the anon coward status. I've been known to light up a joint about three or four times a year, usually when a random person passes me one at a concert. That's the extent of my criminal activity.
HOWEVER, I don't particularly want somebody listening in on say... conversations with my lawyer, conversations with my broker, conversations with my girlfriend... etc. The issue has nothing to do with trusting the federal government, it has to do with trusting every single individual employee of the government. Written policy which states 'unless we think you're a drug-dealing, arms-trafficking, pedophile, we won't do this' is all well and good until one realizes that one person could easily listen to my conversations and blackmail me with say, the charges I had pressed against me as a youth but were later dropped and expunged, or perhaps they could use something from a conversation with my girlfriend to help my ex get custody of my daughter, something which would break my heart.
The trouble is that as soon as something is possible, then it will occur. The more of this stuff that happens, the more America depresses me
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:1)
Re:To tap, or not to tap (Score:1)
3) Why are you worried? are you a criminal? Do you associate with criminals? Do you have something to hide? Then why should they tap you?
A few points: Like most people in the United States, I commit several crimes every month. The latest involves my plan to illegally sell my toilet to a friend. See it's got one of those big tanks and that makes it illegal to sell.
Do I associate with criminals? How should I know? I have my suspicions about my mechanic, my accountant, and several customers. I'd hate for a conference call with any of them to turn into an exploration of my private life after they get off the call and I talk to my coworkers in the UK about what we did last weekend.
Do I have something to hide? Yup! It's called my private life. That's why I have locks on the doors and curtains in the windows. I don't want any random schmuck knowing what I do in the morning before work.
Privacy and paranoia aren't reserved for criminals. Everyone has the right to keep secrets and there is nothing wrong with fighting to keep it that way.
The damned constitution. (Score:1)
Now I'm really sorry if bringing up the subject makes you feel guilty or annoys you (Hence: "What makes you think..."). Tough.
1. I prefer to stand up for myself than whine about the possible futility of any effort. I'm not afraid of disappointment, unlike yourself.
2. I hope to die before I live in a country where the government tells you the ruling figure is your grandfather. Ask my own father about how he cried as a teenager when Stalin died.
3. And hey people die anyway, might as well skip the part about throwing up every morning because of consequences of being a coward.
which reminds me (about PGP) (Score:1)
Dirk
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:1)
Consider this one:
I recently read of a study that showed that Sweden has one of the highest levels of illicit usage of medicine by youth in the western world. Why? Because alcohol is controlled and expensive, so kids will take anything (including aspirin, penicilin etc) if they think it will make them get drunk faster.
Combining medicine and alcohol can be dangerous. Really dangerous.
The amount of illegal (moonshine and smuggled) alcohol used here is about the same as the amount of legal. In fact, we now have a whole new class of organized crime built up around the smuggeling and illegal production of alcohol.
I couldn't agree more with the "choose one" statement. Life isn't simple, my favorite proverb about cake always holds.
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Re:To tap, or not to tap (Score:1)
And isn't there some law about not being able to use information against you that was discovered while looking for something else?
Yes. and No. Here's my understanding, though I may have been mislead/misinformed at one point or another:
FBI is investigating A for being a terrorist.
FBI taps A's girlfriend.
You (B) call A's Girlfriend and the FBI listens in. During this, you admit to axe murdering your aunt Louise.
If my understanding is correct, the FBI is allowed to hand over those tapes if there's already an investigation into poor Louise's murder. Otherwise, they can't do much.
OTOH, if you call A's woman up and admit to taking part in the terrorist activities of A (which they are already investigating and is the target of their tap), you've implicated yourself pretty smoothly, and can expect an MiB type to show up at your door within the hour. It doesn't matter if they previously suspected you or that you weren't the specified human target.
I'm not a lawyer though, so I could easily be mistaken.
How convenient it is... (Score:1)
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:2)
Do you have any statistics on this?
I keep hearing the extremists (not that I'm saying you are one) shout this very same thing, but I have yet to see any concrete evidence of statistics backing this up.
It's almost as if these privacy folk are feeding off of each other's misinformation.
I'm not trying to say you all are nuts, I would just like to see some factual data so that I can make an informed decision. No offense.
Visible people. (Score:2)
Piece of cake, ducky...
Using a few little tools, you change the MAC address of your card.
And that helps you how? If you dial in, your MAC address is irrelevant, and if you have something like a cable modem, the cable model suddenly stops recognizing your NIC and you are cut off from the net until you change your MAC back.
You can use those freebie introductory access CDs from the front of any magazine to contact almost anywhere. The IP address will never be the same, especially if you use different ISP's to connect all the time.
The IP address may change, but that IP address points to an ISP. That ISP has logs, in particular, logs of which phone number was assigned a certain dynamic IP at which time. So unless you dial in from pay phones (doable, but a huge pain in the ass), it's not a big deal for law enforcement to link your posts/rants/site visits to your home phone number.
Being anonymous on the net is generally hard. Either you have to use a public terminal (Internet cafes, dial-in from payphones, etc.), or you need a hacked machine as a gateway.
Companies like ZKS (Zero Knowledge Systems) may provide a solution. When they finally come out with their system, we'll see how good it actually is.
Kaa
Re:but what about... (Score:1)
I can think of a few kidnapping uses (Score:2)
So when you go bust down the guy's door and it turns out he moved the kidnapped child to an abandoned warehouse down the street, and the child is killed because you violated their first demand ("No cops."), what then?
Wiretaps are just like any other evidence-gathering tool.
If your child was kidnapped, and you had a list of 2 people you think did it, wouldn't you want the cops to be able to tap phone lines to be able to tell for sure? With a wiretap they can collect information about the group's movements, plans, and *locations*.
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:1)
--
Matt Singerman
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:2)
Wobblies, Communists, Socialists, Labor Unions, Students for a Democratic Society, MOVE, Branch Davidians, militias, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, American Indian Movement, Black Panthers, Yellow Panthers, Central American Solidarity Movement, Arab Americans, etc etc.
Now, some members of these *may* have advocated violent means to achieve their ends, but the majority (and certainly the overwhelming majority of the followers) never advocated violence and were merely exercising their Consitutional rights guaranteed to the them. The FBI will use whatever means they have to spy on its citizens and do its best to destroy what they perceive to be threats to "the American Way of Life". Go read a book on COINTELPRO, Watergate, or Echelon to see how government spies on its own citizens and then feel free to freely criticize the power structure. Go take a look at the ever growing number of authorized wiretaps granted over the last decade and the amount of requests denied and you might be surprised.
It's not just terrorists or child pornographers that will end up being spied upon. It will be anybody *suspected* of commiting a crime whether it be nuking Washington, smoking marijuana, violating parole, speeding, or not paying their taxes. Since nearly the entire population has broken some law you can go to jail anytime. The government just has to justify the expense. With cheap, reliable and easy means of surveillence, you're a fool to think the FBI and others wouldn't expand their domestic surveillence against ALL people SUSPECTED of crime.
Such roads lead to selective enforcement of the law and that does not guarantee my safety, but does limit or even ignore my rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:2)
right."
No one would claim that they make mistakes very often. But when they do -- you should be afraid. You'll be frightened out of your wits, have all your property seized, and get lots of unwanted publicity that will never be properly corrected when the truth finally comes out.
"I am sorry there even 'are' disapproved minorities, but I don't think that is the issue here. Citizens ARE sheep, and I'm willing to bet they aren't all members of the majority either... But this isn't what I'm discussing here."
You asked -- "what are you so damn afraid of?" My answer is that unless you are in a group that is being actively targeted by the government -- not much. Otherwise, a lot. Some of us see that the government's willingness to abuse the rights of some citizens imply they'd be equally willing to abuse ours, given altered circumstances. This is cause for worry.
"You mention Watergate, Rodney King... sounds like what you are looking for is accountability.
Exactly out of what thin air would you like the law enforcement agencies to get the information, or proof as you will, to bring these things to a head?"
Are you suggesting that increased wire tapping would be applied against government abuses? Forgive me for doubting. Note that the Nixon tapes were obtained thru due process, by the courts. No wiretapping required. Note also that the whole scandal was set off by an illegal wiretapping act by our president -- yet more evidence that the government cannot be trusted with easily abused surveillance powers.
On Vietnam, remember the "Pentagon Papers?" What that led to was more illegal wiretapping (at NYT) and breaking and entering to obtain Ellsberg's psychiatric records in an attempt to discredit the truth that leak revealed.
The Rodney King case did not lack for evidence, just willingness to put white cops in jail for abuse of power. While it wasn't our government that failed here (they even brought a civil rights case to make up for the failed criminal trial), they're still responsible for spreading the false idea that cops are the only thing standing between "regular citizens" and the nasty have-nots and radicals who want to take everything away.
I too was once sure that the government was on my side. My turning point came in the early seventies when I was clubbed returning to my dorm room after peacefully attending a scheduled town hall meeting on the Vietnam war. It was probably the most educational experience I had in college.
Re:Gov't must accept the death of wiretapping. (Score:2)
At the moment I believe the FBI are restricted to tapping lines belonging to specific suspicious individuals. Could this property of packet comms be used as justification for tapping *all* lines?
Does the WTO know about this? (Score:2)
As an employee of a comms equipment manufacturer in the UK, this is a matter of concern to me. How are we supposed to sell into US markets? Is this protectionism in disguise?
How does one go about giving the World Trade Organisation a heads-up about this? Does the WTO in fact cover this issue?
Paul.
Re:Searching Serendipity (Score:2)
The warrant is supposed to state what property can be searched, and for what. Now, what if the cops find something else? IIRC, they can use it, so long as they were conducting a legitimate search as per the search warrant.
For an example, imagine a felon has a bag of drugs in his sock drawer. If the cops come in with a search warrant for a handgun, they are justified in going through the man's sock drawer (you can hide handguns in sock drawers), and can then bust the guy on drug charges and use the evidence legally in court. If the warrant is for, say, stolen washing machines, cops have no right to go through his sock drawer: he cannot possibly hide a washing machine in a sock drawer. If they do, and find the drugs, they cannot use that as court evidence, arrest the guy for it, or bring that to a judge to get a warrant for searching for drugs.
Of course, in the latter case, they may use legal surveillance methods to see if they can get some legal evidence for an arrest...
I am distressed (Score:3)
It honestly sounds like most of you people would prefer that law enforcement have *no* ability to collect evidence. No wire-taps, no search warrants, no security cameras.
I don't think I have *ever* read a Slashdot article with this number of posts and NOT A SINGLE FACT OR STATISTIC backing ANY of your objections up. No numbers, no statistical trend showing the number of illegal or unnecessary wiretaps, nothing. You are all simply feeding on each other's fears and magnifying them to a horrible frenzy.
Do you people really wish to live in a place where the privacy of every person is held in the highest regard -- untouchable even in the most extreme of circumstances? I take COMFORT in the fact that my law enforcement bodies are able, through a court approval, to discretely and confidentially monitor communications -- in any form. Like most of you, I have no statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if wiretaps aided in a significant number of prosecutions that would have been impossible without them. People -- we do have checks and balances in our governments. Statistics on wiretaps are collected and analyzed. If a group of people are requesting an ungodly number of wiretaps while producing few prosecutions, this will be noticed.
I am also extremely displeased by the high degree of bias in these "Your Rights Online" pieces. The "author" bringing the stories to us also brings his editorial along, complete with conspiracy theories and the invariable "Big Brother" tie-in. To privacy activists, this is pure adrenalin, hence the high number of very vocal anti-government and anti-law-enforcement posts.
Now, before you folks unleash your fury on my "naive" and "ignorant" ass, let me just say that I obviously don't want to see these types of things abused, but we DO already have oversight in place to see that this doesn't happen. If you feel that judges are being "tricked" into allowing wiretaps, or that these judges are "in" on the conspiracy with the cops to violate your personal privacy for their own kicks, THIS is what you should be working to fight.
Don't hinder law enforcement's abilities to conduct investigations in a LAWFUL and DISCRETE manner just because there exists the POSSIBILITY that these abilities will be misused.
Do you folks think that people in charges of these law enforcement organizations and the people appointed to act as judge are all complete IDIOTS? I'm perfectly willing to concede the fact that a small number of these people are, in fact, stupid people, but that does *not* mean that these organizations are collectively out to ruin your lives and your privacy for their own kicks. These people are fully aware that there are privacy activists out there that would have a field day if they fuck up, with a result of them being out of a job.
PLEASE don't read and take things at face value. THINK FOR YOURSELF and don't just jump on the frightened privacy bandwagon until you make an informed decision on your own. The government is NOT OUT TO GET YOU. If you don't like how your local law enforcement is behaving, you have two options: 1) Write a letter to your local government and media and express your concerns; 2) MOVE OUT. If you don't like how your national law enforcement is behaving, you have two options: 1) Write a letter to your congressmen and media and express your concerns; 2) MOVE OUT.
You people need to be working *WITH* your government to address your concerns, not *AGAINST* them.
Re:Invisible people. (Score:2)
Re:What about this? (Score:2)
Is it really that hard to duplicate your visit in a court?
"I clicked here, and closed the window like this." *poof*
Secondly, you *shouldn't* necessarily have to prove it. The *feds* would have to prove that you did it intentionally, not the other way around.
Cheers
Re:2-q's: Canadians/others? & Central discussion a (Score:2)
As an extreme option, you could simply choose not to do business with US companies. Express these privacy and confidentiality fears and concerns with these businesses. They will in turn complain to their government and things will change.
Though I suspect the number of people that will actually do this will be far too small to make any appreciable impact.
Re:What makes you think... (Score:3)
Internet providers, however, have not been given this "common carrier" status. Thus, legally, your ISP can read your e-mail, monitor the web sites you browse, newsgroups you read, posts you make, whatever they want. They don't do that, of course, but they could probably get away with it legally (though they would probably go out of business as a result).
Forget about encryption, think Internet telephony (Score:2)
To tap a phone line law enforcement only has to lean on one, possible a few parties. Namely your telephone company. Since telephone companies are cowardly, heavily regulated monopolies this has not proved very difficult. After all, they only balked at the *cost* of CALEA.
However think about what it would take just to tap an IP stream. First, because of the very nature of packet switching, you need taps everywhere. Since there is no analog for the central office on the Internet. So just to start with you need to lean on a lot more parties, every ISP basically. While many, most, ISP's are cowardly corporations, not all are. There are lots of community and non-for-profit providers who do have some spine. Not to mention that clandestine "gray"-nets would immediately spring up, should such regulations be imposed (look at what's happening in China if you do not believe me). So, even if extremely intrusive, almost certainly unconstitutional laws where passed, wily individuals would still get around them.
Furthermore we have not even addressed the problem of making something meaningful out of a raw IP stream. For that the eavesdropper would need, not only all the packets sent and received, but would also need to know what program you are using. A raw stream of UDP packets does not provide very much info. and programs could easily be written to obfuscate their purpose.
Let's face it packet switched communications is taking over from circuit switched. Packet switched is technically extremely difficult to tap without having monolithic control of the entire network. Given the current political climate I find it impossible to believe that after decades of decentralized authority the Internet would revert to the sort of central control authority required to make the DOJ's dreams possible.
So, basically, fight CALEA like hell, but promote Internet telephony even more.
Re:There's stuff you can do (Score:5)
Before the last election, I was talking politics with some acquaintences, and I mentioned I was voting for Harry Brown (Libertarian). The response I got was along the lines of "Why the hell are you voting for someone who doesn't have a chance of winning?"
This isn't a horserace. In a horserace, you only win if you pick the right horse. In an election, you only win if the majority picks the right horse; if an idiot (or worse) is elected, it doesn't mean a damn that you voted for or against the candidate.
Republicans and Democrats want you to think that there are two candidates for any office: the one the Republicans back and the ones the Democrats back. Bull! They may have the best chances of winning, but that is no excuse for voting for them. For any office, vote for somebody you think will do the job well. Write them in, if you have to!
Is this a dangerous "waste" of a vote? No. Many people vote against one candidate by voting for the candidate of the other major party. But (at least for Presidential elections), splitting the opposition vote is still a vote against. That is, if you want to vote against the Democrat, a vote for the Republican, the Reformist, Jesse Ventura, or Rob Malda will still have the same effect in keeping the Democrat out of office. The Democrat doesn't need the most votes; the Democrat needs over fifty percent of the vote (or you dust off the Constitution and play strip poker; the last candidate wearing clothing gets the Oval Office).
If you are going to vote, vote for somebody. Just voting against somebody is the trap the Republicans and Democrats want you to fall into.
So what if you vote for somebody who has no chance of winning, if you don't think that the candidates that do have a chance are all idiots? There are two possibilities: either you are wrong or you are right. If you are wrong, your candidate may win. If you are right, and only the idiots have a chance of winning, you are no worse off by voting for a useful candidate that loses than by voting for a useless candidate that wins. You still get the same guy in office in the worst case.
Re:It's Worse Than You Think (Score:2)
Where did you get this information? I can't possibly imagine this being allowed to happen. Could you give us a URL or a location in the CALEA that legalizes this, or are you just saying this capability is made possible by the government-mandated changes?
They can do this very easily because CALEA allows the feds to log into a switch and electronically listen to any conversation they want to.
I can't imagine this being legal to (ab)use in the manner you're describing. Unless you "forgot" to mention that they would need a court order first?
Perhaps it would be in the best interests of the phone companies to monitor what the government is monitoring, and ensure that proper authorization was given, assuming that law enforcement can do what you say as easily as you say, and assuming that a warrant is not required beforehand.
Re:Just another step. (Score:2)
It would probably be a bit difficult to hide an appreciable amount of explosives in a device the size of a Pilot.
They *don't* have to show you any regulations, any more than if they stopped you at the door and said, "Sorry, you're not allowed to bring guns in here." or if a cop stops you on the street and says, "Sorry, you're not allowed to park next to a fire hydrant."
It is interesting (perhaps news-worthy) that the number of security precautions at airports have increased, but it's hardly a thing to shout "privacy invasion!" over. Try visiting an airport in any foreign country.
Re:Not correctly phrased (Score:2)
Perhaps this is just a fundamental difference in the way people like myself view our place in the government versus people like you... *shrug* (I don't mean that in a derogatory way).
Ever hear the phrase, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"?
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:2)
The following was written with implicit sarcasm tags:
All the social problems with Alcohol and cigarettes went away when they were made legal. It should work just the same with cannabis.
Cigarettes (nicotine) have never been illegal in this country (USA). Smoking is prohibited in certain situations, but not nicotine. So no fair conclusions can be drawn here.
The sale and consumption of alcohol (ethanol) were prohibited in the USA for a while, and caused many, many problems which I won't attempt to summarize here -- they are too numerous. But read some of these pages:
Prohibition of any drug is not only a violation of human rights and an Orwellian interference with privacy -- it's also deadly. We need to stop the drug war [stopthedrugwar.org] now.
Re:I am distressed (Score:2)
There's a difference: Whereas the posts I was talking about have been offering up fears and outright stating things guised in the appearance of fact, I was not. My post was stating my opinion and recommending courses of action, hence my lack of "facts" (thus factual supporting data).
Like most of you, I have no statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if wiretaps aided in a significant number of prosecutions that would have been impossible without them.
Your "distress" at unsubstantiated assertions seems to be just a tad selective.
Do you disagree with my statement? Again, I wasn't offering it as a fact. I simply said I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were true. I have no doubt in my mind that if I call my local police department, they will concur with my educated guess that a noticable percentage of convictions would not have been pursued or successful if wiretaps had been denied.
But, again, this is simply opinion. I don't think I'm being selective in the least.
I expect privacy-rights organizations to be biased in favor of privacy
I didn't realize this was a "privacy-rights organization". I simply thought it was Yet Another Section under Slashdot. If this assumption was wrong, my apologies.
Certainly, the government is biased in favor of expanding its own power,
This is another point where I don't share your certainty. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm simply saying I lack the necessary knowledge to be able to immediately say, "yes, of course they are." I believe the checks and balances in the three branches of our government have done *wonders* to keep any one area of government (such as law enforcement) from overstepping their bounds or "expand" its power in a way it was never meant to.
The whole point of the objections is to insist that law enforcement does in fact behave in a lawful manner. If you agree with this objective, I don't understand your complaint.
I'm not sure I understand this. I believe that, generally speaking, law enforcement *does* behave not only in a legal, professional manner, but in an ethical manner as well. That's not to say that there aren't exceptions, but I would hope that these exceptions are discovered and exposed by diligent folk like yourself, and the people responsible for these infractions answer for their misdeeds.
No -- as I said above, I think they're biased in favor of expanding their own power, and therefore not entirely trustworthy.
Is there such a thing as an organization that can be said to be entirely trustworthy? In my opinion, we have what we have. Our system of government allows ordinary citizens to not only participate, but shape our government. If the result of that is a government that is consistently going against your wishes, then a) you haven't been doing a very good job as a citizen; or b) the majority of educated people in the United States disagrees with you.
Possible solutions: a) Become more involved; b) Move out.
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:2)
1: Supposed Enemy of the State This allows the Feds to keep track of people who, while not criminal, still piss off the Fed. If the government is going environmental, it can track loggers this way. If the government is leaning in the loggers' favor, it can track down troublesome environmentalists. Think how much the Fed would love to put surveillance on somebody like Ross Perot? Big Brother is watching you, even if you are above board.
2: Bad Cop, No Donut If you allow a federal law enforcement agency to see something, you are allowing multitudes of individual federal officers to see it. And since some people are corrupt, it stands to reason that some federal agents with access are corrupt.
3: Point of Attack This follows from the above, and is frankly what scares me the most. A Federal back door into security systems becomes an incredible prize for a cracker, and you simply cannot protect it like Fort Knox. With a good cracker (or a bad cop; see above), that back door gets posted to the cracker BBSs. And if everybody is required by law to have this back door in their systems, this means that the entire nation becomes instantly vulnerable. This is not like a security bug that you can patch a fix to.
BTW, this issue is close to my heart. Part of my job is making sure that financial data gets from hither to yon without getting intercepted by criminals. If the Fed required me to install a back door to the software I use, I would be literally unable to do my job.
I was about to respond.. (Score:2)
You call yourself informed? Moron.
I can't wait for the day that people can have an intelligent argument without resorting to name-calling.
I do. It's like high school. Selective listening.
Remember: You elected the people that are listening to your letters.
Cheers...
Re:About "tapping" the Internet... (Score:2)
Thus, denying the government the sort of Big Brother powers it would need to make a dent in the drug trade would not "cripple" legitimate police action against real criminals.
/.
Re:Not correctly phrased (Score:2)
Not particularly. I was no more interested in that search than I am of any "missing private plane" search. Perhaps if the Kennedy family had made some personal impact in my life I would feel different, but that's not the case.
I merely quoted that statement because it sums up my thoughts on our government perfectly. It's not my fault if you don't vote or never write letters to your representatives and senators. It's not my fault that you elect people into office that constantly do things you don't like.
It may be my *problem*, since I, too, have to live with poor leaders, but fortunately it's a problem I can correct, rather than whining on Slashdot day after day.
Re:I am distressed (Score:2)
Wiretap's issued under Federal court order will get you indicted and convicted.. If you admit illegal activities on tape or phone, and the crime is severe enough, John Law can and will nail your butt to a wall. They will use the tape or video, along with corroborating evidence in court.
End of story
Re:Not correctly phrased (Score:2)
Re:I am distressed (Score:2)
>prefer that law enforcement have *no* ability to
>collect evidence. No wire-taps, no search
>warrants, no security cameras.
I think you are failing to see the distinction between these two situations:
- Government officer obtains a court order allowing them to sift through suspect's trash looking for receipts.
- Government agency obtains legislation requiring all owners of trash cans to provide and use a separate bin for receipts.
If one accepts the premise of a law-enforcement agency, the ability to collect information follows. The situation I have a problem with is where law enforcement needs start to take precedence over those of the society supposedly being protected.
This is what is happening with things like the digital wiretap law and persistent government efforts to hamstring (or backdoor) encryption: The FBI is trying to force the rest of society to bend over to make their lives easier when investigation time comes around.
>Don't hinder law enforcement's abilities to
>conduct investigations in a LAWFUL and DISCRETE
>manner just because there exists the POSSIBILITY
>that these abilities will be misused.
Why on earth not? Isn't that the whole point of such legal gems as amendments 4 and 5 to the U.S. constitution?
Unpunished crime is one of the prices of a free society. That's what the legal principle known as "innocent until proven guilty" is there for.
>The government is NOT OUT TO GET YOU.
Not at the moment, no. But I am not so ignorant of history or naive with respect to human nature as to believe that it can never happen in the future. Civil rights activists, women's rights advocates, environmentalists, socialists, gay-rights activists, and other people many of us now regard as heroes were once wiretapped and otherwise persecuted - legally - for their beliefs. Who's being persecuted today? Who will it be tomorrow?
I don't see any reason to make the persecutors' lives easier.
>If you don't like how your local law enforcement
>is behaving, you have two options: 1) Write a
>letter to your local government and media and
>express your concerns; 2) MOVE OUT.
Even if I adopt your point of view for a moment, that's not a terribly optimistic pair of choices. #1 only works if there are a million of you or you become a full-time lobbyist. #2 is expensive and difficult to pull off, even for a rootless knowledge worker like myself. For some people, emotional ties make it impossible.
It doesn't sound to me like you have anything to offer but "shut up and take it".
-Mars
Re:I am distressed (Score:2)
This is kind of a stretch, IMO. It would be more akin to the government requiring all trash cans to have an easily-removed lid.
The FBI is trying to force the rest of society to bend over to make their lives easier when investigation time comes around.
As I understand it, they're simply trying to re-gain wiretapping abilities that they've started to lose as as the result of us moving away from analog communications services.
In the past, it used to be a relatively straightforward thing to tap a person's communications lines. Nowadays, with our digital and computer networks, law enforcement officials haven't been able to get as much information (if any) out of the same types of wiretap orders.
>Don't hinder law enforcement's abilities to
>conduct investigations in a LAWFUL and DISCRETE
>manner just because there exists the POSSIBILITY
>that these abilities will be misused.
Why on earth not? Isn't that the whole point of such legal gems as amendments 4 and 5 to the U.S. constitution?
Not quite. If an investigation is conducted in a "lawful" fashion, then obviously it is in compliance with the amendments you mention. My statement stands.
These things that are being provided to law enforcement *still* require the law to act only upon probable cause and through due process.
Unpunished crime is one of the prices of a free society. That's what the legal principle known as "innocent until proven guilty" is there for.
Agreed! It all depends on how much "unpunished crime" you're content to live with. It's apparent that you are content to live with more than I. You don't seem to want law enforcement to be able to adapt with technology, whereas I do.
Not at the moment, no. But I am not so ignorant of history or naive with respect to human nature as to believe that it can never happen in the future.
Ah ha! I toldja somebody would call me "naive" and "ignorant."
I'm not saying the government won't be out to get us in the future. That's not what this law is about. It's about fear that it *could* happen in the future.
All of the various persecutions in the past were done with overwhelming public support. If something like that does happen again, like you seem to think it will, I only hope that people like you will be around to fight against it.
However, this is not one of those times.
Even if I adopt your point of view for a moment, that's not a terribly optimistic pair of choices. #1 only works if there are a million of you or you become a full-time lobbyist.
But there are a million of me. Some 270 million, in fact. They may not all agree with me, but I take comfort in the hope that a great many of them make an honest effort to make themselves educated and heard in our political system, even if their views are directly opposite mine.
Re:No you can't... (Score:2)
If I were a fed, and I had a pretty good idea who the kidnappers were, I'd be tapping the phones of their known associates and immediate family and any cellular phones they might own.
Tapping the phone of the victim is obvious.
What you don't acknowledge is that when wiretapping, along with the *conversation*, the *phone number* of the other party is collected, which of course immediately gives you an address...
EXCEPT if it's a cellular phone. This CALEA thing supposedly allows law enforcement to get the location of cellphone users via wiretap orders. Is this really such a bad thing?
Re:About "tapping" the Internet...offtopic? (Score:3)
Bald Wookie dun said:
To tie a minor thread on this...oddly, the three legal drugs (caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol) are known to not only have as many bad health effects as many of your illegal drugs, but in some cases are every bit as addictive or moreso.
To give an example--nicotine, which is legal to the point of being an OTC drug, is now known to be as addictive as, and probably more addictive than, opiate narcotics and probably is equivalent to or even slightly more addictive than cocaine on "liking indexes" (measures of physical addiction that show how hard it is to "kick the habit") and by biochemistry. Some scientists studying the mechanisms of addiction have stated that nicotine may be the most addictive substance known...smoking is well known to cause health problems (just read a cigarette packet, already), cigarette manufacturers are known to "dope" cigarettes with nicotine (this came out publically in the tobacco hearings in the US, and has been common knowledge for years if you live anywhere near a cigarette plant or know employees--there's vats that if you so much as touch they HAVE to send you to hospital because those vats are full of nicotine and have nicotine residue on the outside to the extent it will give you nicotine poisoning, and nicotine poisoning is NOT fun--much the same effects as strychnine poisoning).
Alcohol, too, has known health effects if taken in excess, is poisonous in quantities only slightly above that necessary to get one bombed, slows reflexes enough that one becomes dangerous if one tries to drive, and is known to cause physical dependence. In fact, a fair number of liver transplants in adults have to be done because of cirrhosis of the liver--basically the liver gets burnt out by long-term attempts to detoxify ethyl alcohol once one gets physically addicted to it.
If we want to talk prescription medications, some opiates are actually available over the counter (Cheracol and, in some states, paregoric) and most are schedule IV or III (addictive potential, but you've got to take a fair amount) drugs...benzodiazepine tranquilisers are KNOWN to be physically addictive (most responsible doctors will NOT give you more than a week's supply of Valium or Xanax for that reason)--are every bit as physically addictive as morphine in fact, taking them with alcohol or driving whilst taking them is a good way to get one's self dead, and yet they're only Schedule IV.
Marijuana is not known to be physically addictive (the only indications of physical addiction are in rats given obscenely huge doses) and doesn't necessarily have to be smoked (some of the bad effects of smoking are from the smoke itself; ANY smoke will give off carcinogens if you burn organic material). Psychological addiction is probably another story, but people can get psychologically addicted to everything from sex to Quake to reading Slashdot (you could seriously argue that autistic kids are psychologically addicted to "self-stimming" [rocking back and forth, or smacking one's self...the kinds of "stereotypical" actions you see in a lot of autistic kids; they do this to calm themselves down after being overstimulated--the major problem in autism is that they essentially can't filter out stimulus and/or are oversensitive to it--rainfall might sound like millions of hammers on tin, and in the worst cases sight and sound and smell might blend all into each other not unlike how one's senses get scrambled on LSD; a good way of thinking of how severely autistic folks have to deal is they are undergoing a perpetual bad acid trip] because it's relaxing :), and the mechanisms for psychological addiction have more to do with probable imbalances in body chemistry to begin with rather than body chemistry being altered by a drug itself. The worst effects that have ever been proven for long-term marijuana use are maybe problems with memory; the jury is still out on whether pot reduces initiative [for that matter, so does alcohol; so does Valium--both of these are quite legal]. Marijuana has several beneficial uses, not the least among them being as a mild tranquiliser and possible antidepressant, and the only known treatment for AIDS Wasting Syndrome and wasting syndromes of cancer.
However, pot is still illegal--Schedule I. Oddly, pure THC is Schedule II (same as morphine) and legally sold as dronabinol, though it's not been proven to have the same bad health effects as morphine or amphetamine. I've heard that this is largely due to lobbying by alcohol companies after Prohibition (they didn't want pot cutting into profits--especially since they were having to recover from the LAST War on Drugs, folks finding out there were better drugs and better drugs FOR you could well have caused serious hurt to the spirits industry in the US).
Now, to steer this back on topic--I think that giving anyone in power to tap into someone's convo IF THERE IS NOT EXISTING PROOF THAT THE PARTY IS DOING A BAD THING is just plain Wrong and WILL ultimately be abused. Period. Look at COINTELPRO or records of the CIA's investigation of Catholic refugee support groups if one needs examples...or the list of groups listed as Officially Subversive (which includes--and I am not making this up--the SCA, the Jihad Against Barney the Dinosaur [must have been that "jihad" word ;)], the NAACP, Amnesty International [because AI has reported on how the US commits human rights violations and supports groups that violate human rights in other countries], Human Rights Watch [same thing], most people who have protested major military actions, and probably by this date the EFF and Slashdot's entire membership :). It is entirely possible that we could get Bad Folks in government and this info could be used against one.
For instance, I happen to think fundamentalist "Christianity" sucks arse (largely because I grew up in a family of raving fundies, and I've seen enough of the bad side of the Religious Reich to REALLY make yer hair curl--folks drooling over any possibility that nuclear war might break out and bring the Rapture early is damned scary, and I'm just now realising just HOW wacko some of what goes on in there was). As a result, I do support groups fighting the influence of the Religious Reich as well as groups speaking out against religious abuse in general.
I also happen to know that more than a few fundies, including people from the very church I left, are...to put it mildly...extremely active in politics from school boards on up [this is what likely happened with the Kansas school board, btw; it's been a position plank of the UnChristian Coalition and a number of groups even FARTHER to the right to take over the school boards and move up from there to infiltrate political parties]. (Some of you in Kentucky might recognise Frankie Simon's name...for those who don't, let's just say he's trying his best to outdo Fred "godhatesfags.com" Phelps, and also happens to be the head of most of the fundy and pro-censorship groups in Kentucky. And happens to be a deacon at aforementioned fundy pit, and most of the rest of the "deep in" members of the church are as rabid as he is...nasty place.)
If--God and Goddess forbid--one of these fundy groups were to get a candidate in who could appoint heads of the FBI or a state equivalent, I can GUARANTEE you that everyone in the US or in that state who is a member of the ACLU, People for the American Way, a member of an anti-censorship group, anyone who's ever supported or has run a Fairness campaign so people can't be fired just for being gay, anyone who has ever talked publically about being a walkaway from a Bible-based coercive group or who operates a walkaway group for folks escaping from Bible-based coercive groups, and a fairly long list of others WILL end up on a shitlist somewhere...and they will probably abuse the "secret wiretaps" so they can hope to find something to bust these folks on. (An example I can think of off the top of my head--a walkaway or gay-teens support group talks to a kid who is having real doubts about fundamentalism because he's discovered he might be gay...and the state just passed a law against kids getting any counseling at all without parental consent...except the kid CAN'T get parental consent because if he stated he had doubts about fundamentalism and/or he was gay he'd be putting himself at severe risk for physical abuse and/or basically being psychologically tortured by the church members trying to "exorcise" the "demons of rebellion" or the "demons of homosexuality" out...and yes, people have died in these before, and many more have ended up in mental hospitals).
What if the Scientologists were somehow to persuade the FBI to investigate everyone who posts on alt.religion.scientology so they can get more info to harass them? What if they do it JUST to harass them (yes, they've pulled stuff like that before)?
There's just too much potential for abuse in this...I'm beginning to wonder if there's hope to fix this other than setting up either a PAC for Internet users (one is being worked on called USORS) or starting a third party expressly for the Internet-connected...and I've been giving really serious thought to the latter recently... :)
Re:I am distressed (Score:2)
That's what a search warrant is. If the cops get a search warrant, you are legally obligated to allow them access to your home. If you refuse, you are a criminal.
Despite what you seem to think, this law does *not* in the least bit allow them to circumvent the requirement that a court order be received first.
Take a look at the world _right now_ and see all of the racial and ethnic violence and then tell me that giving power to the "majority" is a good idea.
We are still talking about the United States, yes? Where is it that you live where racial and ethnic violence is being committed by the "majority"?
Like it will do any good if the government can monitor all forms of communication at will. The time to protest is when you still have some say.
By "at will" I assume you meant to say "upon receipt of a court order", yes? This is what you are protesting?
Re:I am distressed (Score:2)
Please re-read it and if you have anything valuable to say besides "boil your head," I'd be more than happy to discuss it with you.
Re:No you can't... (Score:2)
See, what I'm trying to say, though, is that law enforcement has already *had* these powers for quite some time, when dealing with analog communications. With the acceptance of digital, law enforcement has started *losing* the ability to determine a call's geographic origin and, to more recent points, the contents of those communications entirely. It's not like they're being encrypted or anything, they simply lack the means today to even try to intercept the messages, AS ALLOWED BY THE COURT ORDER.
The CALEA, from what I can tell, simply puts digital communications on par with existing analog by allowing law enforcement to get the same amount of information from a conventional wiretap order. This is perfectly fine in my book. By opposing this, it will effectively obsolete law enforcement's ability to perform wiretaps at all as analog communications disappear.
Huh? (Score:2)
Please elaborate on the point you were trying to make and I'll do my best to answer you. If you're confused about something I've said, please just ask.
Re:No you can't... (Score:2)
What I *don't* understand is where you're getting that. I've scoured dozens of news sites and I cannot find a single mention of the FBI considering what you're describing.
The CALEA only requires telecommunications providers to assist (and be compensated by) law enforcement in their efforts to carry out court-ordered wiretaps.
The *technology* to do what you describe has been here for years (though only with analog networks). It is, however, ILLEGAL, with or without the CALEA. The court order requirement is still in place. I guess I just don't know where it is you're getting the whole "tape/store/index" thing. Maybe I missed an earlier article or a URL or something. I simply can't imagine anything remotely like that ever being made legal. It's technologically within the FBI's capabilities to come to your home, break down your door and search your house mercilessly without getting a search warrant. That doesn't mean we should stop issuing search warrants, though.
Re:What are you so damn afraid of? (Score:2)
More, their life is on the line every time they do so much as stop someone for speeding, so making quick decisions as to how much danger they are in is important to their survival. If some overgeneralize I have to say it's easy to understand why. Strangely, unfounded prejudices probably do not serve their interests either -- it's safer to distrust everyone rather than cretinize some based on a stereotype. You can also be civil and suspicious simultaneously.
Still, I will never fully trust cops (or a government), even though I may understand why they are as they are.