FBI Plans New Push on Internet Surveillance
According to CNET: "The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping."CNET:
The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned.
FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting last Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
The draft bill would place the FBI’s Net-surveillance push on solid legal footing. At the moment, it’s ensnared in a legal challenge from universities and some technology companies that claim the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband surveillance directives exceed what Congress has authorized.
The FBI claims that expanding the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act is necessary to thwart criminals and terrorists who have turned to technologies like voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.
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For a company whose governing motto has been "Don’t be evil," this move seems to confirm some of the worst fears of privacy and Internet rights activists.
In a scathing editorial, the Gray Lady says Barack Obama's presidency, which once promised unprecedented transparency, is instead "proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it."
In cities across the country, the government is installing sophisticated audio surveillance equipment on public transit to listen in on passengers.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case against the nation's telecommunications companies for cooperating with a once-secret wiretap program enacted by the Bush administration to monitor suspected terrorists.
You know a legislative compromise is one-sided when the AP headline announcing its passage reads "Senate Bows to Bush." Democratic advocates of the new FISA bill, passed by the Senate on Wednesday, are still trying to explain what they got in exchange for rolling back a few civil liberties and burying some of the president's abuses. When they figure it out, someone, somewhere, will surely be listening.
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