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FTC Wants Secret Spam Investigation Powers
PingXao writes "Amidst the various anti-spam efforts underway in Washington, the FTC surprised lawmakers by saying they need to be able to secretly investigate the worst-offending spammers, according to a Washington Post article. I'm generally against government secrecy, but quietly investigating spammers isn't as bad as secret courts and arrests. Is this acceptable, or another mis-step down the slippery slope?"
Is the FTC required to knock on folks door and inform them they are about to start gathering evidence? Why does a spam bill need to be passed for this?
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
be it by a federal law enforcement or your local police. It's really useful in cases where a subject of the investigation is a flight risk. But - the secret parts dont last long - once someone outside the circle of investigators gets interviewed, the cats out of the bag.
This is just yet another attempt by a government agency at empire building. SPAM is nowhere NEAR a level of importance or National Security that would require investigations or legal proceedings to be held in secret. Conduct those in the proven existing methods. Very little NEEDS to be kept secret.
Have the representatives of the people once again intentionally forgotten that little fact: they represent the will of the people, and they govern solely at the sufferance and will of the people?
Has anyone checked the watering schedule for the tree of liberty recently?
Although he fails it, he makes a good point. Spam first, free speech next.
Quoth:
>If they use every dirty trick in the book and think nothing of
> emailing paedophilic pictures to anybody and everybody, don't
> spammers deserve the same level of attention as other > criminals?
s/spammers/FBI/ , and it reads more clearly.
I'm for governments being able to quietly investigate crimes before they arrest someone. Cops going up to your house saying "We're just outside, and we'll be following where you're going, FYI!" just doesn't make sense to me.
I'm against them being able to blanket spy on everything everyone does just in case someone might intend to or commit a crime. The difference being that in this (FTC's) case, they've identified people they want to investigate - they're not fishing quite as much.
Better yet, let's make no law enforcement efforts secret. Killers and Rapists should get 48 hours notice before anyone attempts to server a warrant. Police should always be required to wear flashing red and blue lights, even when they are off duty. Undercover work should be eliminated.
If you had bothered to read the article, you would know that in this case 'secret' means that the FTC would be allowed to investigate someone with out first informing them and giving them a chance to cover their trail and move all of their assets off shore.
Mmmmm, in general, you're kind of correct, but I rather suspect that it would be inordinately easy for the FTC to target an individual spammer whose products/services are illegitimate.
Consider the fact that the FTC is being forwarded upwards of 170,000 spam messages daily, and it's not a real stretch of the imagination that at least some of them are offering bogus products or services or are otherwise doing something illegal, perhaps identity-theft scams, credit card fraud, etc.
So, yeah, let the FTC go to the DOJ and get a court order for a wiretap and let them monitor some of the assholes out there. And, if they don't find any basis for filing a formal complaint against them because of some sort of fraud issue, then let the wiretap expire, and simply announce to the world, "We tapped Joe Blow's Internet connection because we thought his spam was fraudulent. It wasn't, and we really did check all 5,236,783 messages that he originated last week".
Then step back, turn away, and let the lynch mobs finish the job appropriately...
Secret investigations? Why should they be necessarily secret? What advantage would it give the prosecution?
After reading the last story about spammers hijacking address space in order to support their efforts, I can only say that spamming at this level is quickly becomming a very high-profile crime.
I am beginning to think that not only should spammers be prosecuted as a first degree felony at certain levels, but the people who pay spammers should also be held responsible for the actions of spammers as well.
Simply put, there is no justification for spamming. If you have subscribed yourself, knowingly or otherwise, to some advertiser we, as users, should have the right to block any unwanted email.
There are many approaches to the problem. Some suggest revising the protocols email servers operate under might be an appropriate suggestion. I actually agree with this idea in spite of the obvious difficulties deployment will cause. Other angles include legal [criminal] strategy which I also support. It's clear the senders recognize their emails are unwelcome and go through great pains, illegal or questionably legal. They know what they are doing is unwanted, unwelcome and in the morally inappropriate. It's time to put the law behind this as well.
I find it difficult to imagine a case where "innocent" people could be hurt by legislation that aggressivly criminalizes spamming. Can anyone think of a scenario where innocents could be hurt?
Oh? Show me where it says in the (US) Constitution you are entitled to unconditional privacy?
Although I'm not a privacy nut, that's the wrong question to ask. The 10th Amendment specifically spells out that the constitution does NOT grant rights (particularly inalienable rights). In other words, what isn't specifically granted or prohibited by law is power reserved by the people.
That said, it would be absurd to argue that privacy is an inalienable right (although, there are a lot of absurd people on Slashdot that will try and argue it without thinking it through).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It looks like they're just asking to be granted law enforcement powers ("you're under arrest for fraud") instead of just regulatory powers ("stop doing that or we might send you a nasty letter").
I don't see what that has to do with YRO. The article says the FTC wants to go after people who send "deceptive emails", not necessarily spammers in general, even though in practice they're really the same group. I could argue that there exists a right to send bulk emails, but I would never argue that there exists a right to commit fraud.
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You are right - "used to". If **AA doesn't need a warrant, neither should FTC. Why is it that private industry has more policing power than the government whose job it is to enforce the law?
You are also right that FTC is not in the secret surveillance agency, but they do investigate and help prosecute. Public investigation and legal notices allow spammers ample time to shut down their activities and hide their assets even before the investigation begins.
I don't want to tie DMCA and USA PATRIOT Act into this but that's where the slippery slope started. It seems like what FTC is asking doesn't even come close to those two.
Police departments and the FBI already have the ability to conduct investigations in secret. Police departments are not required to notify a gang of criminals long before raiding them. They are simply required to show a warrant.
Prior to obtaining this warrant, the police may conduct an investigation unbeknownst to their target. They may interview witnesses, collect crime scene evidence, etc, all without neccesarily notifying their target. The FTC, however, notifies targets before commencing formal investigations. Unfortunately, targeted spammers may use this notification to frustrate the investigation, destroy evidence, or otherwise interfere with enforcement activities of the FTC.
If the FBI were given jurisdiction over spam, perhaps investigations could be conducted with a modicum of secrecy. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Instead, the FTC, hampered by bureaucratic rules and procedures, must conduct preliminary investigations in the full light of day.
"Public investigation and legal notices allow spammers ample time to shut down their activities and hide their assets even before the investigation begins."
The old way to deal with this was to make the public notices in places where you had to look for -- like the basement cork-board of some oddly-located government building.
"It seems like what FTC is asking doesn't even come close to those two."
True, but any comparison to some other wrongdoing is irrelevant. This one is wrong, and it should be fought just like the rest.
Until such time as spamming is legally outlawed, I don't think there is any reason to broaden government surveillance powers to include them. You might not like how spammers operate, but dislike isn't sufficient justification for this sort of action.
That said, it would be absurd to argue that privacy is an inalienable right (although, there are a lot of absurd people on Slashdot that will try and argue it without thinking it through).
So, after giving it some careful thought, I'm going to argue. As long as any one entity claims the right to privacy, then all entities must share that right to privacy. This is a classic "who watches the watchers" case. Lets go way out on a limb here and propose a completely one-sided transparent society. Citizens' every moves are recorded, analyzed, and filed away. Meanwhile, government offices no longer permit citizens to review their own records, review government records, or otherwise break through the privacy that the government maintains it needs in order to operate.
Citizens wake up every day, they go to work, they go home, turn on the "news" which is just the same government-provided "we are doing our best for you" feel-good media that doesn't reveal one bit about what the government has actually done, on every channel.
Crime spikes suddenly, well... not really, the criminals just get caught nowadays, instead of getting away. But lets take pedophiles, since they're the people everyone loves to hate (them, or terrorists, its hard to say). Rather than sitting around at home trying to download kiddie pr0n, they now sit around at the government office of popular observation and whack off to your daughter taking a shower. But you don't know this, you're not permitted to know who is on the other side of the camera. You just know that the cameras had to be installed to make sure you (or someone else) weren't molesting your children, or stealing your things, and that everyone's house has them. So now, the rest of the criminals have moved into the ultimate protection, the government offices, where they can falsify records and destroy evidence with impunity since nobody can watch them. Innocents are caught (perhaps because of a falsified record!), but since they are not permitted to review the secret government "evidence", they cannot defend themselves.
Now, lets look at the opposite: a completely open government and a private citizenry. Ignoring the benefits of seeing how your tax money goes to waste, we'll focus on crime fighting in this case. Anyone can anonymously look in on, say, the FBI and see whats going on. They can see that the FBI has the wrong address for them, and update their records (at this point, the anonymity should have to be dropped since you should be required to prove you're not changing someone else's records, as well as proving your changes are correct.) You can also see the progress being made on every investigation. A successful criminal in this world would track the investigation into his crime and stay one step ahead for as long as possible (people make mistakes). In this case, though, the criminal is limited to reacting to the information available to everyone, including the next door neighbor who knows that their neighbor is a wanted person. Our country is currently something like this, though with a little more privacy on the government side, and a little less privacy on the people's. But you still know its time to run and hide when your mugshot is on the 9 o'clock news. Unless you're a terrorist (or possibly a terrorist, or mistaken for a terrorist), and then youre simply disappeared into a world of secret tribunals and indefinite incarceration without trial or oversight or recourse.
There are two other possibilities to consider as well.
The first is a private government and a private citizenry. This, I believe, was the model for a very long time. The government had its secret toys in the guise of various secret agencies, the people had their secrets in the guise of a strong 4th amendment, and popular idea that what you do is your own business. In this society, the criminal investigation process was rigidly laid out. A cop would find evidence, present this evidence to the proper authorities, then if the evidence was sufficient,
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You are right - that would be an "old way". Last unneeded complication to add to this would be a "spammer early warning service" for some guy to take those notices and post them on his website, or charge for the service for relaying those notices to individual spammers.
I wish that was the case, but you know as well as I do that that's not how the government works. First of all, DMCA and USA PATRIOT act are not considered by lawmakers as a "wrongdoing"; because in the black and white picture we know who the real "evildoers" are. Second, if other similar government agencies, and even private industry have such policing powers then there is no case for making an exception for FTC. Hence, the discussion about slippery slope. Third, FTC's recent record doesn't show that they listen to public opinion - just look up the recent media consolidation ruling, or broadband ruling and its reversal (but that's no reason for backing off).