Big/uncle Brother/sam

[Spyrus]

the government has gone one more step to make sure freedom of speech and our own personal thoughts can be shared with them.

Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to expand the government's domestic surveillance powers under the controversial USA Patriot Act to include reading individual e-mails and monitoring a person's Web surfing activities.

Does this seem right to anyone else? Do you think they can actually get away with it? Where does it stop......


http://www.esecurityplanet.com/trend...le.php/1582401

[isimbor]

Yet another reason to use unbreakable encryption.

[mayhem991]

If they read my e-mails they'd die of boredom. I have serious moral problems with that proposal, as I believe in respecting my fellow man. My question is would it be enforced equally or would they "profile" suspects for eavesdropping.

[AciDriveHB]

Where's the freedom? because say I'm pissed off at my friend Duncan and talk about how much I want to kill him...just pissed of, and the next day I could be fine. But I would be in jail the next day because their would read my email and say I was a threat. Kind of starting to sound like the movie "Minority Report" with Tom Curise. They are going to start running filters and a lot of stuff would be caught that could be taken the wrong way. I donno, I understand, but I see a LOT of bad news coming from it if they would actually pass it!

[HTRegz]

Heh... it's kinda funny that this should come up.. since we just had a class about this in my system documentation and procedures class... Now remember that this is Canada.. but according to my prof, your ISP has the right to read all your email, and so does your company.. even if there's nothing about it in your contract or EULA or in a company in the company policy.... Apparently ( don't know how much truth there is to it but this is what we were taught) a company can set up a filter to watch for the Boss's name or anything else, and if they find you sent out something bad-mouthing the boss.. they can fire you.... It's rediculous...

[AciDriveHB]

Not surprised, always have to have the loop hole. That way you don't know about it, but if they need to for some reason they can. Which could be useful if someone is trying to hack your system or take over the company or plan something. But then again you would think they would be stupid to do that. If someone is going to send emails about killing the president or something, don't you think they would be smart and use PGP software or something? Just a thought, but very good point HTRegz! *Waves to the Canadian friends above*

[instronics]

Nothing better than good old gpg.

[mohaughn]

US companies can also read your email if you are an employee. There is no expectation of privacy in that type of setting. You are using their computer, their email system, their resources. Now with an ISP, that is a different story. I don't believe they have the right to violate your privacy in such a way. Atleast not yet.

Also about the threatening email. You can't be arrested for just that. I guess if you sent it to the person you are threatening you could get in trouble. But if you, say, sent an email to your girlfriend threatening your boss, and somebody were to intercept that. They(cops) would need some other type of proof to get you on conspiracy charges. SO if you sent an email saying that you were going to shoot your boss in the head, and then you go out and buy a gun, you could definitely be brought up on conspiracy charges.

I think the government should have to go through the same actions to read email or monitor computer usage as they do to tap a phone line. Take evidence of a crime being committed to a judge, and have them approve the tap. That is the only way to make sure that cops don't go overboard with their powers.