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Appeals Decision in USTA vs. FCC (CALEA)
Note that this case is fundamentally about money: the telecom carriers are suing the government because they feel that the government's desired surveillance abilities (mandated under the 1996 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act; this is where Carnivore was born) are too expensive to implement. If the government provided more money (half a billion tax dollars were given to the phone companies when CALEA was passed, but the companies want more), these objections would evaporate.
So there weren't any principles of privacy involved, at least in the beginning. But some civil liberties groups have grabbed on the shirt-tails of this case to make principled arguments - that the surveillance requirements are too burdensome and intrusive in principle, not just too costly. So this is actually a good result where the Court mostly agreed with the civil liberties people that the surveillors should have to get warrants for some of the information they were seeking to get without warrants, and other information may be unavailable entirely. Note however that "call location" information (the ability of cellular carriers to report to the cops which cell phone tower your phone is registered with, and therefore, probably where you are) will still be available to law enforcement.
As a Christian I firmly believe in the morals that once made this country the greatest in the world before self-worshipping atheists and liberals told people that committing sins like drug use, extra-marital sex and sodomy were "lifestyle" choices rather than actions with consequences for your eternal soul.
I can't speak for everyone else, but I consider people like yourself the reason why the U.S. has all but given up on Liberty. Think about this, if you will: If it weren't for religion, 90% of all wars that have occurred over the history of mankind would never have happened. This is just my personal estimate, but I think most people would agree that it's pretty damn close. Not everyone wants to live like you. I respect your personal morals, and in fact I live by similar morals. But with all due respect, you don't have one god damn right to tell me whether or not I should use drugs or have pre-marital sex, and neither should the U.S. Government.
If you truly believe in the Libertarian roots of the U.S. Constitution, vote for Harry Brown this election year. If you don't have a clue what the Libertarian party is all about, please spend some time to educate yourself. The U.S. needs less government, not more.
I work for one of the major telcos, and I can tell you that people are upset about the anti-privacy ramifications well into senior management. Telcos have always had a high standard of privacy; switch technicians take an oath that they will never divulge anything they hear "on the wire" to anyone, including law enforcement. People get fired for that.
While the money did quiet the objections, don't think the telcos are happy about CALEA either.
yeah, the whole Iran-Contra thing. They let Ollie North run a war because he was fighting against communism. It didn't matter than no one authorized sales of weapons to Iran, as long as they were doing things to promote "The American Way", they conveniently overlooked things.
The Republicans always talk about Clinton violating the law by perjuring himself. I consider what happened under the republicans to be a far greater threat to me.
So if this is true, How come only Clinton was convicted of something ??
Oliver North was convicted. His convictions were thrown out on appeal on the grounds that the evidence was tainted by evidence he gave under immunity.
Check this for a list of convictions, a summary, etc. Bush pardoned six of the convicted government officials.
And in general, what would you rather have your president do: lie about schtupping some floozy, or sell arms to terrorism-sponsoring countries generally hostile to the United States?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Used to be associated with happy. Saying "SomethingXYZ is so gay" used to mean something like "SomethingXYZ makes me so happy". I guess sometimes it still does. How the word "gay" ever got associated with homosexuality I don't know. Must be something to do with PCness I guess.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Cellphone conversations are encrypted with a weak cypher using a short key that has been deliberately weakened by zeroing several bits. Using a powerful PC to perform a codebook attack from a large hard drive enables near real-time decoding. Don't trust your digital cellphone for sensitive conversations any more than you'd trust an analog cell or cordless phone.
Louis Freeh, eat my shorts.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Whoa... am I reading correctly here?? Did I just get teleported to the Middle Ages or something?? Laws are meant to protect _everybody_. Heck, the way you put it, we might as well just shoot anybody that we think might have committed a crime. They don't have any rights, right? So they automatically forfeit their right to life too. The definition of crime evolves like everything else. It was only forty odd years ago when sitting in the front of the bus was criminal for certain classes of people. Do you think everybody that protested then should have personal tracking chips implanted in them?
I see... you're one of those people who really loved _1984_ and was very sad when it didn't actually true. And you thought it's weird when people call the book a satire and not an instruction manual...
It shouldn't be sarcasm. Just substitute and for like.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
not to generalize, but they're all dumb.
(umm.. joke)
That's because the republicans were all summarily pardoned before the republicans lost the presidency. It's kinda hard to get a conviction when you're not allowed to serve an indictment.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Legal arguments are all about slippery slopes. History has proven it's entirely unreasonable to rely on arbitrary stopping points.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
It's because all the would-be moderators have been trolled and have responded in his thread, thereby effectively preventing them from moderating him in any direction.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
just install a little chip ala cartman's v-chip which shocks the little piggies every time they break the law!
unfortunately it wouldn't be long before most major cities were overrun with the smell of bacon.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
First, most of the FBI agents I've met seem like reasonable guys and I rather doubt they'd break the law. Second, even if they did it wouldn't do them any good -- any evidence obtained in consequence would be inadmissible in court:
I really do not mean to be derogatory, but you are being very naive in this case. A typical situation goes like this: The LEA suspects that a person is doing something illegal. They use some sort of unconstitutional method to find this out. They then backtrack to find "clues" that would have led them to that conclusion, but this time the clues are constitutional.
Example: FBI suspects John Smith of selling marijuana. They tap his cell phone, sure enough he's selling some amount to Joe Slashdot. The cell phone tap was illegal; they didn't have a warrant. So they get a local cop to pull him over on a routine traffic stop, search his car, and whoo-HOO what do we have here Mr. Smith?
Badda bing, badda boom. The original means used to determine that Smith was selling pot were unconstitutional. But they busted him anyway just by coincindentally having a local cop help them out.
- Rev.They're welcome to ask all they like. In most cases, the answer will and should be "Request Denied".
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life; but only a fool trusts either of them.
-- P.J. O'Rourke
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things. -- Robert Heinlein
First, most of the FBI agents I've met seem like reasonable guys and I rather doubt they'd break the law. Second, even if they did it wouldn't do them any good -- any evidence obtained in consequence would be inadmissible in court:
DA: So you found Mr Gambino on the docks with a container of cocaine?
Cop: Yes.
Defense: How did you know to look for Mr Gambino on the docks at that place and time?
Cop: We read his email.
Defense: Motion to strike evidence -- Fruit of the Poisoned Vine.
Judge: Granted. Case dismissed.
IANAL.
This is an excellent decision, especially from a Federal Appellate Court. It means the 4th Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure is being upheld and applied to technological developments. And it's not being narrowly construed to expand police powers. Too much police power, and you get a police state.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilence, and this is one vigilant action.
There are those who worry about corporations acquiring too much data, and violating your privacy. This can be troublesome, but not as bad as a government that can compel actions under threat of imprisonment. So long as there aren't monopolies, you can always chose to deal with another corp.
A good point. Of course, that's perjury and I'm not sure how many cops would. Also, I believe all police lines are logged (date & time of all calls incoming/outgoing) if not NID'd and recorded. And cops do _not_ give out home numbers!
But if the cops were illegally reading email, then they would have to show that they gained nothing from that email. In other words, they would always have to check out anonymous tips:
Defense: Do you always check out anon tips?
Cop: No.
Defense: What made you check out this one?
Cop: I felt it in my bones.
Defense: Have you read his email?
Cop: Yes.
Judge: Case dismissed {?}
Of course, this is getting into a very hazy area, and I don't know what the "tainting" threshold is.
Of course, your second point is entirely valid. Information can always be used in other ways. This is one of the principle threats of police powers.
It isn't discovering evidence that leads to a police state but rather discovering blackmail material. And that's just what an evesdropping dragnet turns up. Just why do you think the heads of the KGB and Stasi were so powerful, and often headed their governments? This thing autocatalyses, and people become informers out of self-protection and to curry favor.
Nor do I use long distance, but that's another story. Can anybody figure out how to encrypt Dialpad.com? ;-)
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
The price of hardware tends to drop quickly, however a lot of the costs of implementing this will be in software development. It's not like the developers can make their money back by selling lots of licenses. The work will a specific application for a specific customer. Software engineering time doesn't appear to be getting much cheaper, and I doubt it'll become a open source project.
Cost isn't just in components. Ever heard of employees like the cable guy? You know the guy who provides services? Services, S-e-r-v-i-c-e-s, you know like "work".
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
What prey tell rider did the Civil Liberty groups propose?
None. Stop talking outta your ass.
They just showed up at the discussion table.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
3) Make it illegal for corporations like the IRS (you terminology nazis back off it's sarcasm) to force people to keep information about themeselves for an extended period of time.
I hate fucking paper chases. Nothing in the world other than the equations for general relativity require so much paper. State your case simply and I may have the info.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Like Clipper?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
"Apart from the fact that it is virtually impossible to intercept a cellphone transmission except in the movies (and perhaps the early nineties)"
Heh... For many midrange computerised scanners, a bandplan modification is pretty easy; it usually requires only a computer interface for the scanner (usually commercially available) and software (sometimes shareware or freeware will do the trick). And most are designed so that the manufacturers can easily produce unrestricted versions for countries where there aren't any restrictions on selling such gear (e.g. Canada), which usually means at most an easy hardware modification.
One really interesting consequence of the FBI's punch list being tossed out is this: under current law, anyone who suspects that law enforcement has a pen register on their phone may conceal their call destinations by the simple expedient of making all calls on a calling card. It is currently illegal for LEAs to obtain anything more than your calling card number from the pen register.
In order to defeat this tactic, the LEAs will be forced to apply for phone tap warrants, for which they need to meet a much more exacting legal standard than the one that applies to pen registers.
This is obviously an anomaly, and I doubt that it will stand indefinitely. But before it can be corrected, the court has made clear that the FCC and the industry must demonstrate the ability to filter out "content" information from call-relaying information in post-calling-card-number dialed digits.
Man, if I were an FCC commisioner, I'd be pretty embarrassed at the blunt language the judge used to smack down the Commission. "Lack of reasoned decisionmaking"! That's gotta hurt!
GNU Info is documentation optimized for machine readability
we're not borg. every person has different opinions on slashdot. i guarantee that not two people on slashdot have the exact same opinions on things. what you just did is called generalization. and its a bad thing =]
However, what I do for my job COULD be duplicated by someone with the right experience.
Besides, my personal life is just that.. MY PERSONAL LIFE.. The government exists to do things that our state govts. can't. And I can manage my own life thank you very much...
UPS Sucks
That has already happened, here in the uk.
> Clinton was convicted of perjury.
First, he wasn't. Second (what follows is a common European point of view), if he had been, it would have been on a non-subject, and on a question he should never have been asked. This kind of privacy must be respected whether you're John Doe or the president of the USA, period.
> just ask a french heugonaut
It's "Huguenot" (which basically means "protestant").
no he wasn't. he was convicted of contempt of court. a big difference.
Perjury and contempt of court aren't really that different. Perjury is of course the act of lying under oath, and contempt of court is doing anything that may be seen as a hostile act towards the court. Lying can be construed as hostile. In fact, depending on the circumstances, they can actually hit you with contempt as well as or i/o perjury.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Why should the guilty be allowed the same rights as everybody else? They've gone out of their way to invade other people's rights - they deserve everything they get. Protecting criminals only leads to them getting away with it and comitting more crime.
Because one of the basic principles of law (in the USA) is "innocent until proven guilty." Say that the FBI only eavesdrops on people who it believes to be violating the law (I'm not saying that this isn't the case, but then again, I'm not necessarily saying that it is). If it then eavesdrops on someone who turns out not to be guilty at all, then an innocent person's rights have been violated. Not good.
The same thing goes for other such "good faith" laws that are in effect. For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement officials may search whatever they feel is necessary to search whenever they feel it is necessary to do so, provided that they have a good faith belief that they are doing it "by the rules." OK, but what happens when someone is subjected to an illegal search, but cannot take any legal action because, oh gee, the police *thought* they were doing it legally? Regardless of whether the party being subjected to the search is guilty or not, allowing law enforcement such power based on "belief" can be a very bad thing. Not only does it create the possibility of innocent citizens being subjected to illegal searches, but it also has a potential for abuse. [Cop searches home/car/whatever based on a hunch, knowing full well that it is an illegal search. Then when it goes to court, said cop states (untruthfully of course) that s/he was doing it in "good faith."]
Don't get me wrong here -- I fully support going after those who break the law. However, the rights of the innocent must be carefully protected as well.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
One of the reasons we have freedom of religion in this country (the U.S.) is because the last time we tried to have a "pure" religiously run Christian state, the leaders of that state ended up hanging missionaries of another Christian religion (Quakers). The leaders of Boston hung Mary Dyer for speaking about her religious beliefs on June 1, 1660 on Boston Commons, and had hung at least 2 other Quakers the previous year. This culminated a series of oppressions against Quakers that included fines, whipping, branding, and boring holes through the tongue. The oppression officially ended following orders from the British governmet. While this part of the history of Massachusetts is generally not taught, it's out there to be found. Eventually a statue of Mary Dyer was erected in Boston.
When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, both the early American history and the European history of religious wars was in their minds, which is why we have the Bill of Rights and particularly the prohibition on the establishment of religion by the government.
I'm not interested in having the next-door neighbors listen to my conversations with their baby monitor, and I'm not interested in having law-enforcement being able to pinpoint my location any easier than they can already.
That's the problem with anything that maintains a continuous connection with other equipment. It can be tracked easily. Even if you encrypt your conversation, your physical location can still be found.
Maybe a dynamic DNS server using my laptop over a cell modem would provide enough layers of abstraction to keep somebody from finding me quickly. I wouldn't count on it though, unless you change your IP address once every ten minutes or so. That might do it.
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
I agree completely. If criminals were so "innocent" in the first place, God would never have put suspicion in the Inquisitor's mind.
These laws protect the innocent although some guilty are able to hide behind them, protecting the innocent is more important that punishing the guilty. Criminals become career criminals when their lives are harden by their environment (be it the "ghetto" or prison. Change those environments to be conductive to a healthy life and you will reduce the crime. I am assuming then that you follow the book of Leviticus religiously. Will you stone your children when they become too unruly? I could go on for hours on this one.
Laws are meant to protect _everybody_.
Why should the guilty be allowed the same rights as everybody else? They've gone out of their way to invade other people's rights - they deserve everything they get. Protecting criminals only leads to them getting away with it and comitting more crime.
Heck, the way you put it, we might as well just shoot anybody that we think might have committed a crime.
Don't be silly. The punishment must fit the crime.
The definition of crime evolves like everything else.
Yes, according to the wonders of liberal "philosophy" you're correct. But for those of us with a more enlightened outlook, morality has dictated what is a crime since Moses received the Commandments, and those definitions are eternal.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
And another thing, why is it that you are enlightened and liberals aren't? Why does morality define a crime? Christian morality accepted, and then perpetuated, the idea of africans as a sub-species or second class citizens. A fair number of white supremicists are God fearing people such as your self, subscribing to all the morals set forth in the bible.
Freedom requires eternal vigilance. -- Thomas Jefferson
If these groups want to challenge measures such as Carnivore, then let them to it alone, rather than hanging on the coattails of a real court action.
But why do you consider the protection of privacy to be detrimental ? This is very different from the Pork Barrel that politicians attach to bills.
Quoth the poster:
If you have to have a land-line, get an ISDN-based voice phone. Because of the way ISDN is encoded, this will prevent all intercept up to the first electronics.
do you really think that you cant intercept isdn up to the first electronics?
BZZT..
really, it probably being done right now.
buy a STU III, thats secure enough:)
.................................................
you actually concern yourself about the moderation system? how unbelievably, fucking gay.
This from someone posting anonymously. If you have a user account, you obviously concern yourself with moderation enough to try and dodge it.
And where exactly does homosexuality come in? Did I miss a poll that linked sexuality with moderation? I seem to see a lot of people using the word "gay" in contexts where it doesn't belong.
deserves to be caught.
/.'ers.
Think of it as a basic intelligence test for a criminal, do I want to advertise my criminal scheme over a public airwave where anyone with a good scanner can listen in, or do I want to use a payphone where the probability of tapping is slim.
So what if you can still determine the location by triangulation, in general, that's a good thing when you use your cell phone for emergencies, because you're rarely home when you use your cell phone.
I suppose the most secure telephone conversations would be IP-phones with encryption, any links fellow
Talk of "respecting the laws," from someone who probably screams bloody murder at the slightest indication that his "right" to steal music on Napster is going away.
This place is full of bloody hypocrites. You demand that companies Open Source their software so you can snoop and pry in the code, but God forbid your government ask to take a little peek at your private life.
...can't finish this right now. My dick's on fire.
Then explain to me why good Christians, Microsoft supporters, and people with respect for their government and laws are quickly and consistently slapped with "troll" or "flamebait" labels.
...can't finish this right now. My dick's on fire.
This makes intelligible intercept difficult from a point in the middle of the circut, which does not have access to the originating data.
This has been a problem for the industry, so much so that most ISDN test instrumentation does not include the most basic monitoring features, execept at the ST and TE points in the path.
Now, having said this, it is not impossible to decode raw 2B1Q from the middle, it is just very unlikely that the local cop is going to have such equipment in the trunk of his car. Neither is the local phone guy. After the first electronics, however, the signaling is all standard 64K channel, the CO guy can hear all..
I agree about the STU III, but they aren't perfect, either ;)
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
You can expect to find this setup on payphones in seedier bars, courthouses and police stations (oh, yes!), transit centers, and high schools.
Certain types of cell phones offer the greatest security. Get any CDMA-based pay-cash-in-advance cellphone from you local convienience store for about a hundred bucks, use nefariously while riding about, wipe fingerprints from same, slosh a little vodka over it, and throw in convienient river. No intercept, no billing record, no owner record, no location data, just an ESN they can track to the local wholesaler, who has no idea who bought the damn thing.
If you have to have a land-line, get an ISDN-based voice phone. Because of the way ISDN is encoded, this will prevent all intercept up to the first electronics.
I love this country...
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Perhaps people need to lose thier freedom and be tracked to see what its like. I can just imagine being rewarded or punished depending on where I have been tracked and have been doing.
Imagine married couples who are tagged to make sure every moment of thier lives are honest and with thier partner. Imagine our social lives being enforced with the law so we will be sure we do not make mistakes. The last bit of freedom we have ever known can be controlled by our government if you wish. Its all about privacy and freedom.
Lemme see... I've read 1984 at least 3 times, the first time in elementary school and the last time a few years ago in high school. I overuse ellipses in all my conversations, as any of my friends who I talk to on IM can confirm. It's just a bad habit of mine. And did you actually read the post I was responding to?? He called for a personal tracking device for _every_ person. And I don't know about you, but "surveillance really should be carried out by whatever means possible" sounds like a sweeping and general statement to me...
There is a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion, explicitly conveyed by the 1st amendment. Of course, getting the Supreme Court to remember that (cf Employment Division v. Smith) is a completely different matter.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
No, the traditional Sherbert doctrine approach to such laws was to uphold facially neutral-with-respect-to-religion laws that infringe upon religious freedom only when the state interest advanced was compelling and the law was the narrowest one that could advance that interest. This was changed, as I alluded to, in Employment Division v. Smith, which held that religiously neutral laws that infringe upon relgious rights will be upheld regardless -- specifically, that a law prohibiting the use of peyote by all citizens cannot be constitutionally attacked by Native Americans who require its use for their religious practices, even if there is no demonstrable compelling state interest to prevent peyote's consumption in a highly ritualized/structured/controlled environment. This is what is known as bullshit.
The constitution reserves a special place for religious interests in American jurisprudence, just as it does for alcohol via the 18th and 21st amendments. If you disagree with this fact, then the intellectually honest thing to do would be to seek a constitutional amendment.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Certainly! For instance, when a cop is caught violating the Fourth Amendment, we need to be send him to prison (real don't-bend-over-for-the-soap prison, not Club Fed).
I'd watch this thread to see if you 1)endorse this position, or 2)prove yourself to be a hypocrite.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
There are established legal principles pertaining to different levels of expected privacy. For instance, if I talk to someone on the street, a police officer who happens to be within listening range can listen, because I have minimal expectation of privacy. However, if I deliberately move out of range or ask the officer to do so, the police can't continue listening without some grounds for suspicion, because my expectation of privacy is higher once I specifically do something to protect it. (Note: The case law in the U.S. is pretty clear that asserting privacy against the police is not in itself sufficient cause.)
Obviously, a confessional has just about the highest expectation of privacy -- certainly, a higher expectation than a pesonal request not backed by strong institutional tradition. The fact that the "strong institutional tradition" in this case happens to be religious is irrelevant; government in the U.S. is no more supposed to discriminate against a religion than to discriminate in its favor.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
This story at eetimes (dating back to:04/26/99, 10:54 a.m. EST) talks about a company called Starium (Monterey, Calif.). They have an ecryption model for digital cellular comunications that seems interesting.
The truth of this statement hinges on what you mean by "confessional". Are you refering to the box in a church where you sit, or the act itself? If the former, yes, there is a strong expectation of privacy, backed by the institution you are in. But the discussion was of a confessional over the phone, which has no more expectation of privacy than any other phone conversation.
The legal effect of confessionals upon wiretapping laws is and should be nill. The admissibility of such tapes should, IMHO be no different than that of phone tap records of calls to suicide hotlines, rape crisis centers or pregnancy crisis hotlines, all of which have an expectation of privacy and anonymity. To set any contact with a priest above other private contacts, and protect against even the chance of breaking "sanctity" as the original poster suggested is discrimination in favor of a religion over similar, non-religious services.
Oh, and while I am not Catholic, I have a greater expectation of privacy when I have extracted a personal promise from a friend than from a bored guy sitting in a box. Basing legal protections on "expectations" seems guarenteed to discriminate against the social minorities, especially if it is the majority's expectations that matter and not those personally invoved in the transaction.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Slippery slope arguments are intellectually bankrupt. Its nothing but the argument ad absurduim - "I can't find a problem with this idea, so I'll exagerate it beyond reason and find a problem with that. Then I'll pretend that its the same thing."
Legal arguments by rational people are about rational extensions of the topic at hand. If you need to make your slope slippery to show how one thing could lead to another, you are just fearmongering.
Rational extention - allowing police to stop cars based on "gut instinct" has been shown to lead to the use of racially tinted "profiles". If there was a proposal to let cops evesdrop on cell phones on the same "instinct" one could rationally worry that similar profiling trends would emerge.
Slippery Slope - Some people might like to have GPS locaters for emergencies, and similar devices could be used to enforce house arrests or restraining orders on convicted criminals. Oh no! This means that the government will track every single person at every moment of the day and criminally charge people who spend too much time with a dot not their spouse!
History has proven it's entirely unreasonable to rely on arbitrary stopping points.
Rationality shows that all stopping points can seem arbitrary. Legally enforced stop lights and speed limits are not the first step to a police trafic state where you enter where you want to go in your car and a government bot tells you exactly what route to take and how fast to go at each second along the way. Laws against rape are not the first step to a reproductive police state where people are only allowed to have sex once a year in government aproved pairing.
Slippery slopes got so slippery from all the mental masturbation people do to create them. If you want to slip on your own mental jizz, go ahead, but I prefer a rational anaylis of what is.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
However, the law which is seen to "interfere" with this is neutral, or we might even say orthogonal, to religion. The SJC has on several recent occasions made it clear that a religiously neutral law (one which is in no way "aimed" at a particular religion) is binding even on the religious. They have even struck down a federal law meant to say the opposite.
Example time. Horse drawn vehicles are slower, less manuverable and have a panicable animal attached to them. Therefore, traffic laws generally require them to have visible reflective hazzard signs attached if they are using the same streets as cars. In most places this only impacts on those who drive such vehicles to make money or as a hobby. In the Pennsylvania Dutch country, there are also the Amish who drive horse drawn vehicles as part of their faith, and also don't like bright shiny signs.
One could argue that forcing them to put signs on their buggies interferes with the Amish faith and should be forbidden under the 1st amendment. However, the laws are orthogonal to the amish religion. They address only a practical matter of safety, and to compromise that safety because it happens to interfere with a religious action (as opposed to belief) is to grant special legal status to a religious group, which would be the real 1st ammendment violation.
The practice of getting warrents to tap phones is orthogonal to religion. To adjust the practice because it may intefere with religious action of one particular denomination is to give special rights to Catholics. To get silly for a moment, if the Catholic church cannot survive this neutral law, it is no more the government's problem than if my theoretical church requires that I go directly to church every sunday without stopping and I keep getting trafic tickets for running red lights. As long as a law was not implemented against a particular religion, the side effects on a religion are just tough nookie.
To soften my earlier stance somewhat however, I will again grant that a preist may constituationally be granted the same status as other non-licensed counselors. I object however, to the idea that this would be done to protect the Church, rather than being done in the same spirit of personal privacy as protections for doctors, lawyers or rape crisis centers. And in the same line, such privilege should not be any more of an argument against the act of phone tapping, it just effects whether such conversations are then admissable in court. The religious right to never be heard, as opposed to a legal right of confidentiality, I remain contemptuous of.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
It seems that some people have a need to say "1984" and think that it is an argument when faced with any discussion that includes the words "tracking" or "survillance". This sad and socially damaging form of the Tourettes syndrome often appears amoung people who have not actually read the book in question, and never includes an understanding of the complexity of the world described therein. Associated behaviours include squaking out the phrases "slippery slope!" and "nanny state!", the inclusion of elipses to appear thoughtful, and spasmodic leaps from voluntary or warrented systems to survelance of every person on earth.
Unfortunately any attempt to medicate for this problem only results in an increase in the "nanny state" eruptions, rather than reducing overall squaking.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Imagine a discussion on slashdot where the ideas were actually discussed instead of plunging into a hysterical pit of slippery slope arguments. Naw, that could never happen.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
However, to let that exercise break religiously neutral laws would give the religious more rights than the irreligious, thus establishing religion, forbidden by same ammendment. The logical and traditional approach has been to say that no law can target a religious practice, but a neutral and justifyable law that happens to interfere with a specific religious practice will be enforced. If my building's fire code prohibits open flame, it doesn't matter if candles are on a pagan alter, a birthday cake or a menorah, the law speaks only of flame. Because the law was not passed "regarding the free exercise of religion" it is enforced evenly on all to avoid "an establishment thereof".
The first ammendment protection of religious exercise prevents congress from passing laws whose only or primary intent is to inhibit religious exercise. Considering the second, establishment clause, it cannot be taken to protect any exercise which you choose to call religious from being regulated by neutral law.
The SJC understands this ballance perfectly, it is congress that has been a little on the dense side.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
In fact, because policy favors consolidation of cases, attaching all the parties to the case is favored by the courts and laws (that's why there are provisions in the law to do so). That way the courts don't have to hear the same facts and arguments twice.
It sounds to me that by passing laws that they know will get thrown out in court, the government is demonstrating that it has no respect for the legal system. Not that I can point the finger since the U.S. Congress does the same thing, but your argument is somewhat flawed. There are certain factions in all governments that would be happy to sacrifice the necessary checks and balances on the state for short-term gains.
Well, I think the problem with RIP is that the government didn't want to loose face but knew it was in trouble (IIRC, it got through with a majority of one vote), and to be honest they never wanted to admit that they were technically incompetent. If they had, they wouldn't have let this one through. It was a rush job put through a bit of gentle pressure from the law enforcement agenices who wanted to be seen to be doing something. Expect a new RIP bill to be presented to parliament within 5 years at a guess.
I'm sorry, I have to take exception to this. I also live in the UK, and I've been an admin of an ISP or two in the last few years as well. I have also worked within the civil service, and can see things from both sides of the fence. To be blunt, I think you're being hysterical.
To say that we live in a state where "law enfocement bodies now have the right to walk all over us" is a redundant and rather stupid statement. We live in a state whereby democratic politics is allowed. Would you rather live in a country where surveillance is carried out, but you're never told about it? Or would you rather have the ability to state that the laws are wrong and vote for those parties that promise to abolish those laws once you vote for them? Oh, I know, we don't have any of those rights do we. Except that "Mother of all Parliaments" thing that we have.
I find your attitude (in that you imply the suggestion we are unable to do anything about laws to which we are morally repulsed) quite hilarious. You don't happen to be a researcher on the Mark Thomas Comedy product do you?
Secondly, everybody knows that the RIP bill is unenforcable, and will fall at the first hurdle when tested in a court of law. To think otherwise is again, stupid and mildy amusing on your part. Yet again, you have assumed that The Government will show no respect for the legal system, and will just bang us all up in prison for even suggesting that they should give us freedoms. Oh, and they'll probably stop us from being able to vote as well. Britain is soooo like that.
What I always find really, really, really amusing about all these people (like yourself) who complain about the RIP bill, is that you didn't realise that the Interception of Communications Act had been in place for years. The only differene between the RIP bill and the IOCA is that the RIP bill extended responsibility for interception to ISPs as well as Telcos, the IOCA required a secretary of state to sign the warrant rather than senior police officer, and the RIP bill discusses crypto. If somebody wanted to intercept your traffic, they always could, it's just now going to be the case that the operations will be cheaper to run. Oh, and they'll tell you about wanting your key rather than finding it themselves on a supercomputer somewhere....
Oh, and there is one more thing. Do you honestly think that the Police or the Government really have the time, resources, or even slight inclination to give a damn about you? They're stretched to the teeth already - this law is designed to assist in the capture of major drug smugglers and their kin, not some warez kiddie who posts hilarious and ridiculous political statements on slashdot. If you're not a criminal, this law will never even affect you - ever. As an ISP admin, it may affect me, and I am prepared to install any equipment that the Government ask me to install, and run any interception required providing that the appropriate warrants have been filled in correctly and in adequate time.
The only way to be truly secure is to 1) Assume that if the law enforcement agencies even slightly suspect any wrong-doing on your part, that they're going to go ahead and wiretap, read your email, listen to your cell phone and cordless conversations and then work out the legal details later. And 2) Use strong encryption (this has been said a million times), don't use cell or cordless phones for important information, shred your important documents, etc. etc. Be as paranoid as you can.
How come no one threw a fit when people realized that you could listen to your neighbor's phone conversations with a RadioShit scanner? Oh...that's right, they gave us the ability to change the channels. WOOHOOOO!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
If you simply assume collusion between the police and the courts and therefore say they can always "get around" the law, then you've essentially given up on civil society. I haven't yet. That's why it's important to establish in principle that such actions are illegal.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Although it's easy to argue this is invalid under the First Amendment, it's also relatively easy to argue it is valid, interestingly under exactly the same amendment. I can speak only of Roman Catholicism, since that's my background. The sanctity of the confessional is a key part of the Rite of Reconciliation, which the Church holds to be a sacrament and a core of the belief system. Even the Pope cannot order a priest to violate that sanctity. The assumption is that the confessor is acting like a telecom device and that the confessee is speaking directly to God.
If people didn't believe in the sanctity of the confessional, they very well might avoid confession of sins. In the eyes of the Church, this puts them at risk of damnation, which is (of course) a failure of the Church's mission. Therefore, breaking the sanctity of the confessional directly and massively impedes the practice of Roman Catholicism -- so the First Amendment (it can be argued) extends its protection across this practice.
I believe that is the argument used, although I hardly claim to be an expert, or even to play one on TV.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Seriously, take a look at some of the scenarios below:
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/scenarios. html
Consider yourselves lucky you live in an enlightened coutry and not a polic state like ourselves.
Said it couldn't last, said it wouldn't last... This is the last stand against tomorrow's world.
FBI Guy #2: "What? We don't have a warrant! We can't possibly look at that information."
(they laugh)
Use encryption, use encryption, use encryption. Short of sniffing people's email and posting it on the web ("What? You had no expectation of privacy."), how can we convince the average AOLer that this is something he has to do?
I dunno, a stale pizza, a box of tissues and a copy of Quake would be close enough for most purposes.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
"Why should a thief, a murderer or an adulterer be protected by laws meant to protect the innocent?" People are innocent until proven guilty. Having said that, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, reading you your rights, are often seen as laws that protect the guilty. They are not. It is true that many criminals get off on technicalities. This happens when police do not follow procedures meant to protect everyone. Without laws like these it would be much easier to convict innocent people of crimes they did not commit. It is already easier to be proven guilty that it is to be proven innocent. Once convicted you are pretty much screwed regardless of innocence. Already a disturbing number of innocent individuals have been incarcereted or even executed for crimes they did not commit. These laws are meant to protect the innocent, it just so happens that when police fail to uphold these laws guilty people can hide behind them. I for one would rather see one - hundred guilty people go free than one innocent person executed. But people call me an idealist (all christians should be). " We need to get back to being tough on criminals in order to prevent crime, and if the police can track offenders down then it makes their job easier when they (invariably)reoffend. " It has been proven that the death penalty is not a detterent to crime. It has also been proven that persons who are thrown into prisons early in life are most likely to become MORE criminal in prison and reoffend when they are realeased. There are some interesting reasons for this. Getting tough on crime will not reduce crime. Removing a criminals reasons for committing a crime will. If you really want cleaner safer streets you would do well to support programs that attack poverty, homelessness etc. You want the reoffense rate to drop, stop supporting the farce that prisons are "correctional facilities" they are punishment and retribution facilities. They are also, ironically, "criminal hardening" facilities. People come out of prisons hardened criminals because of the brutality with which they are met with on a daily basis. Sending an at-risk kid to be raped on a daily basis for five years in a state pen for a minor offense like drugs(most common offense in state pens), will not make him think gee I shouldn't do drugs anymore. I will however make him enraged (justifiably so) at the society which submitted him to such torture. Also in order for him to survive in this environment he will have to become just as hard as those brutalizing him. Now you have one more hardened person. Ofcourse since no one will listen to me on this I propose that we execute all offenders who are sent to state or federal penitentiaries. That way we guarantee a reoffense rate of 0% and it may be more humane that the torture system we have in place now. STOP THE HYPOCRASY
Now all we have to do is get law enforcement agencies to repsect the laws. Any chance of that happening? Probably not.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
the surveillance requirements are too burdensome and intrusive in principle, not just too costly.
Too costly is never a good platform to debate from. In technology, the price drops are too precipitious. Principle will last long after "costly" is history.
Live to be Moderated
To the police at any level everyone else is either a 'suspect' or a potential 'suspect'. In order to do law enforcement work people have to be dehumanized; they can't be your friends. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to slap hand cuffs on a good friend and throw them into a cage? People to whom this is NOT difficult are psychopaths, is that who you want policing you?
Once you understand that the FBI sees all of us as their enemies their requests for surveillance begin to make sense. All that is necessary is for you to attract their attention to be watched.
For example this posting is enough for me to get their attention and be a target for surveillance - after all I am speaking against them - so I must be their enemy - which means I must be one of the bad guys.
However, it is not necessary to speak out against a law enforcement agency to draw attention. It is enough to be one of those 'hacker types' who post to a known rabble rousing site like Slashdot to draw attention. Remember, despite your politics or views if you are not part of a law enforcement agency you are their enemy and a criminal who just hasn't been caught yet.
That is why you need to be afraid of surveillance capabilities. It also why law enforcement never apologizes when it breaks down the wrong door on a drug bust; the attitude is "Well we just didn't get you this time - but your turn is coming."
I agree totally that if the FBI or the NSA want to have the ability to read people's email then they should be ones paying for it - to do otherwise is to reduce the ability of ISPs to compete in the market, which is to be avoided (unlike in the UK where the government couldn't seem to care less about how much ISPs are going to suffer from the costs of implemented their RIP bill). Given that these agencies have a considerable budget already I'm sure they can afford it.
But why do civil liberty groups feel the need to get involved in what is nothing more than a financial matter between ISPs and the agencies involved? Is it because they have finally realised that the average American would rather have this system in place than suffer continued terrorist violence and paedophile rings, and they are now trying to sneak such court cases in through the backdoor? Whenever politicians attach riders to bills with a completely unrelated and detrimental content people on /. are up in arms - how is this any different?
If these groups want to challenge measures such as Carnivore, then let them to it alone, rather than hanging on the coattails of a real court action.
I think you're missing a key point: why should the government be allowed to enact hilariously idiotic legislation riddled with technical flaws and to quite patently ignore our human rights as given by ECHR?
You seem to think that just because the legislation is unenforceable, that's OK. Why? Don't you believe that people who are trusted to govern our country should be expected to go about their business in a competent way and to generate legislation in which we can be proud, rather than a foul smelling heap of rubbish?
I just can't understand your complacency. You're letting them get away with utter incompetence and total disregard for the views of the people they govern, and to ignore with impunity the opinions of those who are far more technically competent than they are.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
that kind of thing might be neat and fun, especially if you could turn it off at will... if it was just a wrist-band or something.
but as something the gov't and liberty-trampling police organizations can make use of to invade my privacy without any notice, i resent it.
it's not about whether it might be useful or fun as a toy, it's about other people having the ability to invade your privacy without you ever knowing anything about it.
i don't really want the whole world to know, for instance, what kind of porn i prefer, or even something as trivial as what stores and restaurants i frequent.
these are things that only the people i choose to tell and associate with should know, not something any little piggy can find out with the push of a few buttons.
if you don't see the threat of these kinds of things, i really don't know what to tell you except put down the crack pipe.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
ok, putting aside the fact that this can and would be used to invade the privacy of innocent people (probably more often than guilty people), even the guilty have rights until they are proven so, and that means they have rights against the methods that are used to prove them guilty.
you cannot say 'hey that guy looks like a guy who would rob a kwik-e-mart!' and then go up to him and take his fingerprints, or search his house for the clothes the robber wore.
without the requirement of getting a warrant (and even then i don't like it), these kinds of surveillance capabilities are too much power put in the hands of ignorant piggies.
attitudes like yours are facilitating the police state that we live in.
as the snooty waiter in ferris bueller says :
i weep for the future.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Its perfectly fine that it not be required of the phone company, but triangulation should be allowed and performed under certain circumstances. The most obvious is when there is a cut off 911 call and a call-back is not answered. Depending on what if any information was transmitted before the cut off, police should be able to get the location of the phone and respond.
Of course there are those who wold assume that any ability given to LEOs will lead to random harrassment of geeks, and those who would consider even the above situation to be an invasion of privacy, but what can you do?
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
If they have a warrent to listen to the calls of either you or your priest, yes, they have the right to listen to your confessional. In the eyes of the law, your "confessional" with your preist should be no more significant than if I call a friend and say "I have to tell you something really really secret and this can't ever be known by another soul." It is a conversation with great significance to you, but in a religiously neutral state, its just another conversation between two people.
At the very most, I suppose we could consider the priest a counselor and extend whatever confidentiality privelege is given in that jurisdiction to rape crisis workers and other non-licensed therapists. But the "sanctity" that you and your priest have should have no more legal relevance than the special chant two childhood friends might use to establish a special secret-telling zone.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
It's easy!!
:)
You know how they always show the phone call traces in films, and they start with a green line at the point where they are based and that slowly moves towards the point where the person is using the phone... all you have to do is keep moving and then all they have is as floating average of your position
I am not so sure that this decision is a good thing. Yes, the four items from the so-called "FBI punch list" were stricken, but two others, the ones that made EPIC concerned, were left in force.
Basically, the court has thrown out the requirement that telecom carriers capture any digit tones (made by pressing buttons on the phone keypad) trasmitted after the call has already connected. Example: calling-card calls -- the original call is to an 800 number and then, after the call has connected, you dial the number you actually want. Note that this could include also such things as bank account numbers and voicemail passwords.
However the court left in force the requirement to supply the physical location of the closest-to-the-caller antenna tower (thus providing the ability to track the caller). It also left in force the interception of packet-mode communications.
So: win some, lose some. The decision to allow tapping packet-mode communications *could* set the wrong precedent for TCP/IP interception...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.