Slashdot Mirror
Feds Want to Tap VoIP
An anonymous reader writes "From the Globe and Mail: The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department have renewed their efforts to wiretap voice conversations carried across the Internet. Federal and local police rely heavily on wiretaps. In 2002, the most recent year for which information is available, police intercepted nearly 2,200,000 conversations with court approval, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Wiretaps for that year cost taxpayers $69.5 million, and approximately 80 per cent were related to drug investigations."
He doesn't have any points that I haven't already discussed throughout the rest of the thread. This discussion is over because you can't bring anything new to the table.
Firstly, I want to make it clear that I do value my privacy, and it is (or would be, at least) comforting to know that my communications are private. I'm with all of you on that.
But what do you expect authorities to do? These people have jobs, they have responsibilities. FOr FBI agents, heir responsibility is to catch criminals, often drug dealers. (Let's not get into whether that's a worthwhile goal--for marijuana, it's questionable, but for lots of other things, not so much.) How are they supposed to do that? These things are all about connections between people. Exchanges and conversations between individuals. Without tapping conversations, their only feasible way to EVER catch practically anybody is if they get a tip from another person, and then they would still have a hard time convicting them.
Of course, there are other things tapping is used for as well. Important things. Things that might be even harder to find through other means than drug deals.
So I don't like this, ultimately, but I can't find a way around it, if these people are going to do their jobs, and as such I think it's unfair to get mad at some of these people for doing what they do.
Just a thought.