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Analysis of New Internet Wiretap Laws
securitas writes: "The most controversial part of the Combatting Terrorism Act of 2001 is Section 832 (full text) that would expand government powers to capture information about your Internet activities. A UCLA law professor and the former NSA general counsel debate the pros and cons at Slate in a series of e-mails this week (see the upper left hand side for links to each day's exchange). Here's an overview at the NY Times Archive (no registration required)."
I'm french and getting really worried by these laws. They won't stop terrorists, because these huys are ready to die for their "success", but they will deprive anyone else, especially law abiding citizens, of the freedom and privacy they deserve.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Obviously wiretapping is not a perfect solution. In an ideal world, all communications would be 100% secure, and would never be read by anyone but their intended recipients. However desperate times call for desperate measures.
I value my privacy as much as anyone else, but SOMETHING must be done to protect the safety and security of this country.
Given the choice of having the NSA/FBI read my e-mail, and having more terrorist attacks like those on 9/11, I would gladly concede a bit of my privacy. If it would save the lives of other innocent people, I would personally print out all of my communications and had them to the FBI.
If you value your privacy more than human life, you should seriously consider reevaluating your priorities.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
The reason government can do wiretaps? because it's possible.. simple. They cannot force you to speak on the phone, or in a language they can understand, though.
The government cannot forbid people from whispering in each other's ear in a huge underground cave (I mean, somewhere they can't eavesdrop)... so why should they be able to forbid you to whisper at a distance, using encryption?
You see.. NONE of these things would have prevented this attack.
You know.. it's funny. On the movies, the night of the attack, on TV, I saw a show all about some kind of post-terrorism america, where you had to have a license to do *anything*. Buying groceries? You had to have a license, and present it, and everything was tracked... in order to prevent terrorism.
In that news survey, said they were willing to give up some privacy if it would have prevented the attacks. Well.. what a loaded question.
Would they also be willing to give up that privacy if it would have both prevented those attacks, and meant the government now recorded everything you say? I doubt it.
What if they had outlawed any interstate travel wtihout a license to be presented at each state border? Hmm.. I doubt it.
Also... what's with all the buzz about increased airline security? These hijackers could have used *anything* and accomplished their mission. They did not have big, scary guns or deadly weapons. They had tiny sharp objects, and the threat of a bomb.
I wonder if any changes will be made to FAA regulations regarding travelling without presenting identification (You CAN do this, perfectly legally, by the way... the airlines are NOT allowed to demand identification.. though they have different procedures to follow if you don' thave any, regarding handling of your bags)
Baker, Sept. 17, 10:30am: But frankly, I don't hear a lot of calls for sacrificing civil liberties today.
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Sept. 17, 7:30pm: In a press conference earlier today, Ashcroft indicated that he would be asking Congress to expand the ability of law enforcement officers to perform wiretaps. EFF believes this broad legislation would result in unintended negative consequences for civil liberties of law-abiding ciizens by making it unnecessary for law enforcement officers to obtain a court wiretap order before requiring ISPs to release e-mail message header information and Internet browsing patterns of their subscribers.
Perhaps Mr. Baker should have said "I didn't hear a lot of calls yesterday," just to be on the safe side.
There is a very clear reason why "the law" has restraints put on it and has checks and balances limiting what they can do: History, which so many idiots fail to learn from, show that when you give "law enforcement" unrestrained information and abilities it ALWAYS gets abused, often in ways that lead to crime and/or death. We're not saying maybe, we're saying for sure. Does everyone here truly believe that every FBI agent is clean and isn't busy snorting cocaine while handing over information to the mob? Do you really think that there aren't CIA agents taking information from one pile and putting it in another to help out/screw a buddy? These are just people too, and as such they have all the flaws that people have and need to be never be given such powers.
In any case this situation after the WTC is an absolute disgrace: I bitched about it in other posts and I'll bitch about it again-> The US is looking for easy, knee-jerk solutions. Hey who cares that they have zero proof that these individuals were using encryption: Ban encryption (yeah pretend that the glaring galaxy sized hole in their human intelligence was just because they were thwarted by encryption). Despite the fact that at most claims of them coming "from Canada" the simple fact is that most, if not ALL, landed at US airports and went through the obviously grossly pourous US immigration checkpoints I'm hearing asshole, quick fix congressmen calling Canada a haven for terrorists! As a newspaper article today stated: "American cries for increased security at Canadian airports goes under the presumption that Canadian security is worse, a dubious presumption given recent events.". Canadian airline safety has far eclipsed US airport security for years and years yet again there was concern about letting those "lax" Canadian planes into US airspace. Unbelievable. A US baseball team complained about playing in Montreal because they wanted to know that we had "US standards" of security in place: Uh, how many times has Canada been attacked? Sorry I just had to gripe a bit, as personally I think politicians in Canada have been far too accepting of US criticism without calling them on it.
Give me a break! How about looking inwards for once?
The acts of the political profiteers in this country who are using the deaths of thousands to push their pre-existing anti-civle liberties political agendas are only surpassed by the heinous acts of the terrorists themselves. Both parties are waging war against the American citizens.
There is no evidence, nor plausible scenario, in which internet wiretapping of American citizens could have prevented the horrific events of Spetember 11. All of the acts, as well as planning and support, was carried out by non-citizens, many who were apparently here illegally.
If you're happy and you know it, clink your chains ...
Sadly, there is a large part of the population, who given the choice, do not choose on the dynamic of freedom vs slavery.The choose on the dynamic of comfoprt vs pain. They would rather have a comfortable slavery.
Almost any condition can be acceptable if you choose it. What is a pain is when you want to change your mind, and you are not permitted to put that into action. This becomes the option of freedom vs imprisonment, and ultimately slavery.
The Problem in the proposals is that even in email headers that is substantially more information than in telephone laws. And that is where the potential for abuse comes in.
In computing, Garbage in = Garbage out. This applies to people. People educated with garbage will make garbage decisions. They do not even have to be evil (though that helps)
And someone will have the best reasons to abuse the system in some way.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
From a news.com article. Congressman Bob Goodlatte equates encryption backdoors to giving you house key to the local police. He's also pushing for more encryption not less inorder to make U.S. companies/systems more secure against cyber attacks.
Nice to see at he's got the right idea. Check out the article for more of his comments...
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
This is a well known logical fallacy.
We must do something.
X is something.
Therefore we must do X.
This can be used as an argument for any X. The scary part is that it is used and that a lot of people actually buy it!
I wish I could come up with something real funny about an arrogant Mensa member who can't spell, but nothing that's funnier than the naked fact comes to mind...
... but with the people there are in the world today...
There are people like that in government too. They will not hesitate to use the data on you to destroy you, if and when it suits their purposes. Learn from history. For example, study how FBI and J Edgar Hoover abused much lesser powers.
After these laws are in place, and the fight against terrorism is successful (let's assume), what's to stop them from being used for other crimes?
We can use it to fight pedophelia. How about monitoring for words that suggest the writer likes young boys and girls, and searching his home, looking for kiddie porn. Maybe he made a joke, maybe he just has a desire for kiddie porn but would never think of downloading any and breaking the law, maybe he was writing an article on pedophelia. Better check him out, just in case. Maybe since it costs us so much money to check these guys out, we better make sure we make a few arrests, right?
Drug use: careful, if you tell your friends you're going to smoke a few bowls tonight after the show, you might find the police at your door. What's that? You don't smoke pot and never will, just trying to be cool? Son, you've wasted our time tonight. We better put you in jail for the evening anyway..for this bag of pot we happened to find in this drawer. Yeah, we have no idea how it got there either..now come along.
How about the RIAA/MPAA asking to monitor for illegal copying? It's illegal right? So how could anyone argue against it? Just check filenames and URLs going by and if they match up with a copyrighted work, shut down the ISP account. Since there are SO MANY of these infringements every day, we can't possibly verify each one by hand, so maybe a few innocent people get shut down, so what? You'll have a chance to show that copy of Oops, I did it again was actually not by Britney Spears (but thanks for pointing out that trademark violation).
Another different example.. speeding is illegal. So why not just wire up the speedometer so that when the speed limit is exceeded for 10 seconds or more, you get a small fine. I mean, speeding is against the law so there's no argument here. Sure, you might be passing that big truck and have to gun it for a while, but you'll have your day in court, the surveillence video will show your innocence. Unless of course someone abuses their power, but that never happens in government right?
So my fear is not so much when we're fighting terrorists, it's when we're at peace again and the power these laws may grant gets abused. Power corrupts.
Of course this is all a little extreme but we have to be vigilant because corruption comes little by little, piece by piece...
Someone uses a gun to commit a crime, and *bang* (no pun intended), we suddenly need tougher gun laws.
It may have seemed old, tired and annoying, but remember when us second amendment types warned the rest of you that "after they take our guns away, what of yours will they come to take?"
Well, it's here. You're next. Welcome to the club.
In fact, you Slashdotters and fellow geeks have the dubious honor of being an easier target. Who's smart enough to understand the evils being proposed? What average man can understand your argument that banning strong encryption only protects the evil, while making the innocent an easy target? You've got a tougher issue - one that most of America won't understand and won't defend.
At least we have a lobbying organization (NRA) that fights like a bunch of angry hornets whenever our nest gets swatted at. Who's speaking for you all? The EFF? Nice, mostly harmless geeks. Jon Katz on NPR? He's already sold your souls for publicity (Jon, your 15 minutes are up buddy - especially with lousy performances like the last one. "uh.. umm... err..." You've got a voice for newsprint!).
So if you want to stand up for your right to live without mind control, you'll do a lot of good by adding numbers to the NRA. Even if that's a bit much for you (we know how the media's portrayed us), at least recognize the common issues we share and perhaps speak up for our rights at election time. We've been fighting for yours for years.
*scoove*
Don't tread on me... or my constitution.
Well, you need to look no further than the existing systems like Echelon to know wether or not it will be effective or abused.
Effective? They must be covering that up pretty well then. Abused? Well, several non-US companies and countries are a bit angry that Echelon has been used to gain information for US corporations.
So, how do you think it will be used?
Suppose a terrorist (or other criminal) organization was planning to use the internet to communicate via e-mail. Suddenly, there is a backdoor in the latest e-mail encryption software. And for some reason they can't simply continue using the pre-backdoor earlier version.
What is to prevent them setting up a WebMail site on a web server somewhere? Only, make the site a "Secure Site" using HTTPS (SSL, is it?)
Or is there to be a backdoor in secure web documents too? Because it will blow eCommerce out of the water if there is. Just think of all those credit card transactions going to and from "Secure Sites" with a gaping backdoor in them!
Will the War on Terrorism end terrorism? No matter how much money you throw at it no matter how much technology no matter how many rights and liberties you abridge or discard both drugs and terrorism will be with us.
At least Ronald Regan knew he was kidding when he "The Soviet Union has been outlawed. The bombing will begin in 5 minutes".
Throughout history we've many directors of homeland security: Robespierre, Himler, Lavrenti Beria, Vichy France, Cromwell, the Staasi. Not a good plan for us either.
The FBI didn't "suddenly find" the suspects. They had known of most of them for a long time, and some were under surveillance. They just weren't expecting the mass movement, the attack, to happen as it did. (Probably prearranged long ago, I'd think.
Hmmm...
Well, at least I didn't go postal.
And considering that the rest of the message isn't free of typos, it's hard to tell if it was really intended as a joke.
Still, it's nice to see that nobody reads past the first line of my reply to see that that was made in an offhand way, and the rest of the reply was devoted to an actual argument about the original post, not the sig.
Z.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.