Should wiretapping be allowed?

I ask this question because of the article I just read:

The FBI wants to force Verizon Communications to make sure that its broadband-over-fiber service can be easily wiretapped by police and spy agencies.

In a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission last month, the FBI said that Verizon's 30mbps (megabits per second) Fios service must be required to abide by a 1994 law that levied complex and expensive eavesdropping requirements on traditional phone companies. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Justice Department joined the request. Read Article.
And by the way, what does the Drug Enforcement Administration have to do with this?

This reminded me of a few other article early this year, in which there were going to make a law I guess that allows the cops to wiretapp all the Internet connections and VoIP, and also cellphone calls.

Should wiretapping at this level be allowed? I mean, they did wiretapping before, in many countries, but now, it's going to be easy for the feds to see instant messages, what you downloaded, calls over IP and even calls over your cellphone.

I personally think that this is going too far, and that there need to be a few limits on what exactly you can wiretap.It's like they type your name, and immediately have your whole Internet records. Here are a few articles, dating back to April about the wiretapping controversy.

The FBI's listening to your keystrokes

Feds seek limits on wiretap costs

Feds asked to hang up on the FBI's wiretap proposal

I think the appropriate authorities ie: police, fbi etc should be able to wire tap ... assuming they go about the correct way to do it ... and it is approved :) (obviously)

Well, I don't think they are wiretapping everything to "monitor" the whole internet. I think only certain people they are suspecting of crime. If they are monitoring everyone on the internet (if this is possible) then I have a BIG problem with that.

yeah i agree there monitoring everyone is not cool .. but if it is just certain people suspected of whatever .. and they go through all the appropriate channels to get approval then i have no problem with it

But what about users using SSH etc..

Should ssh(2) be banned ??

I think not..

And what about freenet ( http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ ) ??

Concerning Wiretapping: I suppose it should be allowed for the "right reasons" but I say "right" because I don't know if police, etc will alway's use it in the way it should be (same way they sometimes abuse power, etc).

Concerning FreeNet: The_JinX, the Freedom Network Project sound's like a good idea and I actually like that introductory quote, kinda grabbed me:

Quote:

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"I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'"
--Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation

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Say's alot. I'm going to be following the freenet project, looks interesting.

It seems the Government is just asking that a way to monitor it is included in the system. If there was no way to monitor or wiretap then that is a service I would pay for if I was conducting ciminal activities. It would be a way I could send out information and know that I could not be monitored while I did it.

Should they be able to open your snail mail too?
How about come in your house, just in case you might say something
disloyal in your sleep.
:cool:

I believe that feds can ask for monitoring capabilities to be included o ISP.
However, they cant ask for an EASY way to tap lines. They cant to ISP to lower its defense just because they dont have money to tap fiber or whatever.

Just standardize monitoring capabilities at ISP hubs. What features, how to get data, etc..
Almost (or all) traffic passes thru those hubs.

but if they want to tap wires on street, they must spend some of fed' money to get the devices....

:) Seriously, if anybody here thinks that governments aren't covertly screening
all communications around the world, they need to think again.....

echelon is everywhere

And that's just what is publicly known.

What you don't know wont hurt you, unless you are up to no good.....

tiDaLfAze23: I agree with you, but if that were the case then wouldn't thing's such as (and dunno why I'm mentioning this, but) 9/11 have been discovered because the hijacker's would have had to use communication method's to talk about it. Maybe 9/11 isn't a good example, but you catch my drift. Modern-day crimes and whatnot, maybe Columbine, etc etc would have been overheard.

Quote:

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Did Echelon cough up the 9-10 warnings? The National Security Agency acknowledges that it "intercepted" two messages (one said "tomorrow is zero hour") from terrorists indicating that the next day, Sept. 11, would be the date of a major attack. Unfortunately, those messages weren't processed and evaluated until it was too late, on Sept. 12. The NSA maintains a sophisticated voice- and keyword-recognition computer system called Echelon. A former NSA director told the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur that Echelon uses automation to monitor every phone call, fax transmission, email and wire transfer in the world. Did the 9-10 warning come from Echelon? Is Echelon being used to monitor ordinary Americans? Is there any way to speed up the rate at which the NSA processes important intercepts?

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The enormous amounts of data that would be collected on a daily basis, would be too hard to
even fathom, let alone it's automated methods of screening processes and priority settings.

Another question would be how many vital communications are intercepted and processed before
any actions are taken, and are dealt with behind the scenes, away from media and the general public?

We live in a time of information technology, and he who has the information has the power.

The global game of spying has now gone commercial, and will invade and encroach on all who communicate, which is everyone.

From business deals to the simple email, no need to be paranoid and look over your shoulder, just get accustomed to the fact that they are allready there, watching, listening, recording.....




Quote source

Remember, in fascist states the crime rate always drops to about 0%.

So there is no question that invasive wiretapping and other forms of monitoring successfully thwart crime.

Additionally, it's inevitable that if you extend a right to the public (for example the right to privacy), that a few people will exploit this right in order to commit a crime.

So there is no question that prohibiting the government to invade our privacy facilitates crime.

There are two questions that need to be asked here:

1 - Do we trust every member of the organizations which will be invading our privacy in order to protect us from crime? Are the organizations willing to be open about the ways that they have invaded our privacy, to ensure that they are doing what they claim?

2 - Is our fear of crime greater than our love for freedom? The thing that makes America special is not our national crime rate (Singapore, among others, has got us beat there) - it's our Bill of Rights. Are we willing to dilute that ideal just to lower our crime rate?

Land of the Free, anyone?

This is from the news:

Broadband providers and Internet phone services must comply with requirements designed for the traditional phone network, the Federal Communications Commission said in a preliminary decision Wednesday.

The 5-0 vote by the FCC is a major step toward regulations designed to help police and spy agencies eavesdrop on all forms of high-speed Internet access, including cable modems, wireless, satellite and broadband over power lines. Read Article

Do we trust every member of the organizations which will be invading our privacy in order to protect us from crime? Are the organizations willing to be open about the ways that they have invaded our privacy, to ensure that they are doing what they claim?

I know I wouldn't trust anyone, no matter from what federal agency or from what country they are. Problem is, once they do lof all this info, it could be used against you in other ways.

Here's an example. Let's say you got someone who likes kiddie porn, and the police found about it. I bet they'll go to the feds, and ask them to check that person's internet logs, for what they visited, and what they downloaded. Even though the wiretapping wasn't designed for this kind of action, catching adults who watch kiddie porn, but designed for catching terrorists, it would be very easy to obtain the necessary info this way, and make it work in court. Very many people use the net, and use it for a lot of stuff, and just for some freak cop to read your email, it's scaring me. This happens in US now, but how much time do you think it will take for other nations to make rules like this? Terrorist threat is real, and another strike anywhere could drive these kind of laws in many other countries too.

When I first heard about this extension to CALEA (the idea of tapping VoIP has been around a long time), I was enraged. But, now, I really don't care all that much. Let them monitor away. I've got my secure key-exchange protocols, I've got my AES and alternatives, I've got my RSA. Let them monitor my secure traffic all the want. Until they get capable quantum computers, I really don't care about being monitored all that much. My biggest problem with this though is that the people they're trying to spy on...well, they know the same things I do and are going to secure their communications equally well. I don't see this doing a whole lot of good.

Yes, Echelon Is everywhere.
It screens the data and pulls out those which contain 'target' words.

ie: Assassinate, kill, gold, bomb etc, however the reality is that even with this, there is a vast amount of data to decode and act upon, and, as always, hindsight has 20/20 vision. And the words change as the threats change.

Before you condemn those that protect you, consider what EXACTLY they are doing.........

If they get the data decoded in time, and there is sufficient time to react.

(now put YOURSELF in their shoes)

ON YOUR SAYSO PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE........
And not necessarily the bad guys, you could have sent some of your own troops to their death.

Anyone who says "that's what troops are for" or "that's the price that has to be paid"
has NEVER been in this situation.........

I've lost good friends in combat, and more in motor cycle accidents, and once someone has died, that's it. THERE IS NO RETURN FROM THE GRAVE.

If saving OUR people from being killed, means that the government has to ride roughshod over peoples sensibilitys, then so be it..................

[edit] and once more I've ranted and lost the topic. I really do need a :drink:

One question:

Who watches the watchers?

Remember that comic? It's the same now...it's the same way communism and various other regimes went, upper echelon bypassing and not being held to the same laws that they dictate to the masses, all the while saying how much "safer" and "better" things will be, a false justification to their true meanings.

Why not just go ahead and mandate 2-year service for all citizens who reach 18 (men and women)? This means they'll be fingerprinted and be issued military IDs which serve as a national ID to a certain level. Why not go ahead and search/open random mail packets at the USPS while we're at it? I mean, packages could be holding bad stuff too, right?

Making anything to serve a single purpose for the ultimate safety of a mass of people is of noble intent. "Altering" that to encompass various other "bad things" at the same time to simply create an "umbrella" effect so that a better "catch-all" is created is not.

I'm personally tired of Congress and the businesses claiming "Decency acts" and various other falsified fronts that get passed with GOD KNOWS WHAT tagging along on the riders...hypocrisy and lying at its finest.

Quote:

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One question:

Who watches the watchers?

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When this question was asked of Stalin, the reply was:

I DO

You have to let those with the power and the capability do their work, and you just have to trust in them. Weak answer I know, but this is the real world now, and sometimes weak answers are all that's available.

And in the US, don't you have 'Oversight Committees' ?

[edit]

Quote:

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Why not just go ahead and mandate 2-year service for all citizens who reach 18 (men and women)? This means they'll be fingerprinted and be issued military IDs which serve as a national ID to a certain level.

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(not actual, but in discussion)
The prefered method at the moment, is to start a DB using DNA of new born babies, so that in one generation, EVERYONE will be tagged beyond the wildest dreams of Hitler / Stalin and others of that ilk.[/edit]

Well, my view is I don't care.............anyone can listen to my phone conversations (home).......just send me a post card when to make one. At work...........you will deal with the "bad guys"...........and if you intercept one of my wife's home calls...........

"may the Lord have mercy on you soul" :eek:

just my thoughts

............I have actually gone to the pub, because she was talking to a relative.............

:D

nihil: My girlfriend/soon-to-be wife Natalie talk's on the phone all the time to her sister and to her godmother and I'd be damned to know what she would say or do if she found out her call's were being listened to. She even yell's when I'm listening in. :p

This whole issue is sort of academic....

1. If they are after you they can do anything they please.
2. Your information is available digitally in numerous places.
3. If they want that information they will get it.
4. If you are doing something they don't like they will gather all that digital information and use it against you.

You have 2 choices:-

1. Don't do stuff that will make them look at you as a "bad" person.
2. If you are a bad person don't do it digitally.

Learn how to do it in a way that they can't monitor you...

There are ways..... Encryption isn't one of them..... ;)

Tiger Shark: Excellent point, like for instance using say cash instead of having all your money in a bank (although that's paranoia to another level IMO).