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FCC Rules VoIP Must Be Tappable
pengie2 writes "The FCC has unanimously approved the U.S. Justice Department's bid to expand CALEA to broadband and VoIP networks, according to reports from SecurityFocus and News.com. This means, following a mandatory public comment period, service providers will have to wire their networks for easy law enforcement surveillance, the way phone companies do now. The feds have wanted this for a long time." Ebon Praetor adds a link to Reuters' version, writing "In addition, the FCC has decided that the push-to-talk, or walkie-talkie, functions available on phones from Nextel should also be subject to the same tapping regulations that regular phones are."
is the FCC getting more permission to sniff my packets...
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
Encryption should be so much easier with VOIP, since the data is already digital...
How do they plan to tap encrypted VOIP traffic? Of course the majority of phone calls won't be encrypted. However, the criminals that would be tapped I assume would use end to end encryption?
$1.99 web hosting
You don't know it's VoIP data until you sniff the packets. I guess this means they can monitor any and all data traffic to look for VoIP. And, of course, they aren't going to poke around the non-VoIP packets. *ahem*
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
That's good enough for the spooks. See, even if you encrypt the content of your e-mail, you can't encrypt the headers. Sure, "subject" can be filled with nonsense, but the address is good enough to draw a line that says "X said something to Y at this date/time" which is still useful info in an intel puzzle...
Nevertheless, we also have a compelling public interest in keeping Big Brother from using the backdoor to enforce stuff that goes beyond keeping the peace and encroaches on our fundamental (and hard earned!) liberties.
The bottom line is that blocking all law enforcement access to these technologies is going to cost people their lives, but letting the pigs sniff around where they don't belong is going to ruin everyone's life. This is just another balancing act in the giant circus we call a democratic society.
So, rather than moaning about one side of this argument or another, doesn't it make sense to focus on getting just the right sweet spot in between?
Oh there are plenty of ways to get around that sort of stuff, besides I wouldn't think most terrorists are using one of the big 5 american ISPs atleast not on both ends.
How about encrypt and encode your messages into images and then post them on places like fark or deviantart? Simple enough. I'm not stupid why would a terrorist be?
How about our good friends in the government get off their lazy asses and start passing legislations that will make people hate us less not more?
This keeps coming up here on /. whenever the FCC talks about "VoIP". They're not talking about all computer-to-computer peer-to-peer realtime audio connects, they're talking about VoIP services that result in a network of people you can "dial" that more or less resemble a phone network. It's those that they're regulating and basically putting on the same playing field as existing phone services.
I know this will upset the /. gang, but I have no problem with the FBI being able to monitor conversation between criminals.
As the cliche goes, if you're not a criminal, you have nothing to worry about. If you're paranoid, I'd guess you shut up anytime a cop comes within hearing distance.
Do we have a right to privacy? Sure. Do we have a right to keep criminal conversations private? No. Is this subject to abuse? Sure. Will we be abused by criminals who conspire in private? Of course.
Given the choice between giving criminals the freedom to conspire in private or the ability of the FBI to wiretap criminals, I've no problem opting for the former.
In any case, the net is a public place. Nothing there is private.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
If I were to set up a VPN link between 2 sites and and added VoIP phones on each end? Or used sound cards, for that matter? Seems like all they will be able to monitor is conversations through the big-name services, not anyone with the ability to buy and configure a pair of $50 routers with VPN.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
If you criminalize privacy, only criminals will have privacy.
engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff
Aren't you assuming that all calls will be VOIP > POTS? What about VOIP > VOIP? There may be no switch. And if they decide to tap your ISP? What do they do when you have an encrypted tunnel to another location ( VOIP > Tunnel....Tunnel > Abu Dhabi > VOIP > POTS )? They won't even be able to tell that you're using VOIP at all.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
But clearly not enough for their intel. The feds aren't asking VoIP companies to keep call logs that can be reviewed by subpoena. They're asking for the ability to actually tap the calls. Big difference.
The feds have access to existing phone lines, they have access to internet traffic, why shouldn't they also have access to VoIP traffic?
Eventually VoIP will be like email, with the option to use PGP or another form of encryption at both ends.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
It's not like the government is running around tapping your phone lines willy-nilly.
Look, I don't want to pander to the tinfoil hat crowd, but I'm old enough (barely) to remember the scandal that COINTELPRO under the Nixon administration caused. Basicly, the FBI was used to spy on and discredit people and organizations that were perceived as enemies of the administration. I'm not convinced things have changed enough to prevent that from happening again. Why make it easy on them?
You don't need stegan-what-he-said. The picture can be the message. When the picture on a webpage changes, you carry out your instructions.
Someone is going to point out that anyone stupid enough to fly a plane into a building might have difficulty with advanced topics like steganography. Someone else is going to say that the NSA can crack it. That's all nonsense: folks have been putting a candle in the window as a signal for as long as there have been candles and windows, and the internet is a far more visible yet far less obvious way to send a signal.
See what I've been reading.
"How about our good friends in the government get off their lazy asses and start passing legislations that will make people hate us less not more?"
People have been hating us since the beginning. That King George was pretty pissed off. Then there's that whole Hawaii thing. Or the Phillipines. So what makes the present special?
Good criminals and terrorists, as do spammers, will try to stay one step ahead of the countermeasures.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
I seriously doubt the government has some uber-leet technology that lets them crack any encryption. Encryption can do two things and two things only.
1. Encryption can secure a communications link. Properly used Alice can talk to Bob with reasonable protection from Eve tapping the link halfway between them.
2. Encryption can secure stored data. Properly used, Alice could protect the files on her keychain should Eve filch it out of her purse.
Encryption will not:
1. Secure the ends of a link. If Eve physically installs a keylogger in Alice's keyboard then it doesn't matter what crypto she uses. Come to think of it, the old saw applies: all bets are off if an attacker has physical access to a terminal.
2. Preclude treachery and incompetence. Law enforcement may have threatened the other end of your link who is letting them see everything in return for light treatment. A while back, NPR ran a story about police officers who took over a kiddy porn website and roped in a pile of customers. Encryption doesn't help if the other end of the conversation isn't who you think it is. Maybe the other side left his passphrase taped under his keyboard. "Rubber-hose cryptanalysis" is what they call it when the police starting leaning on you.
3. Prevent the government from taking an interest in you. Certain uses of it may even draw their interest. Staying out of view of larger predators is often the best defense.
4. Conceal the existence of the link. Often the government only needs to prove Alice talked to Bob on 7/24/02 at 3:24p.
5. Somewhat OT but something else encryption doesn't do: Allow Alice to share data with Bob while simultaneously preventing Bob from divulging it to Eve. Both #1 and #2 apply. Bonus points if you understand what this scenario applies to.
What this all boils down to is that encryption is largely ineffective against old-fashioned police work. It is also worth noting that Al Queda and others are notorious for using low-tech communications and isolated organizational cells. Don't give those hunting you terminals and only the minimum in physical links to play with. If you're a criminal, try to work alone if possible and keep your mouth shut. If you are a crook or a terrorist, communications are the least of your problems. Your partners in crime and your own mouth are far more dangerous.
Different situation entirely. The chances of you meeting a -real- terrorist are so low, you might as well discount it. That isn't what these laws are for.
Neither will the recipient.
This won't suffice as a full method of communication like calling someone up or sending someone an e-mail, because the two parties have to establish when the message is going to be sent, where it will be sent to, and how the recipient will pick up and decode the message. If that was done over a tapped VoIP line the fact that you encrypted and attempted to hide the payload is kind of beside the point.
That's the plan.
"Trusted Computing" and "The Secure Internet" are double-plus ungood euphemisms for COMMAND & CONTROL (over you).
A world with 100% accountability is damn depressing. Anyone who says otherwise either hasn't seriously thought about the implications, or has, but thinks he's among the few who stands to benefit from stopping the natural freeflow of information.
--
Power to the Peaceful
there's a limit to pragmatism, and a beginning of moral. The constitution was set by people who fought, and yes, DIED for it. If now we're going to repeal that constitution 200 years later, then what did they die for? Weed? Please, if only we heard how many people were actually part of Al Quaeda that they caught with those measures it wouldn't be half as oppressing as it is now. With all these measures, and the law enforcement agencies behind him, Bush is creating a tyrannic government. I really, really hope that people will realize what an emperor he thinks he is by november, because if not, I'm out of the country for good. Besides, weren't Republicans the ones saying that less government was best for a country? Are they now reversing their opinions in a flash???
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
The problem with a code like that is that it presumes that a secure communication (the information on the code itself) has already occurred, that the code has not been captured or compromised, and that the message you want to convey is within the scope of the code already exchanged.
People have used codes in that way for thousands of years, and they still have the same weaknesses.
It's much more powerful and effective to send a message encrypted with good asymmetric key cryptography.
AFAIK with Patriot Act the police no longer need a warrant. Take that step out of the equation at least...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We're fine just the way we are. Don't give'em any ideas!
I have no signature
Is anyone else out there starting to get angry? How long until the Deparment of Homeland Security implants RFID chips in our necks? How long until employees are forced to get their employer's logo tattooed on their face after changing their last name and waiving all of their human rights in the employment contract.
Geeez..... what kind of America are we living in?
America, previously land of the free, now home of the Corporate controlled puppet government run by lawyers with the best healthcare taxpayer money can buy.
In Europe there's tapping legislation that forces each and every provider of a "public network" to provide tapping capabilities. That means that tapping might occur at any hop along the way that is in the EU, be it the DSL or dialup connection (btw, that also ends up in a traditional, yet modernized, CO), the DSL provider, your ISP, their backbone, etc. etc.
Probably the CO where the DSL line is hooked up to is the preferential point-of-tapping, since that way you also catch packets that might go astray (e.g. spoofed packets).
Tapping software is advanced enough (and why shouldn't it be) to filter out and reconstruct VOIP streams.
It's unlikely that the authority to tap is used sparingly (i.e. used only on one end of the conversation). For example, in The Netherlands a warrant to tap a line extends not to just one phone line, but any one that calls that phone line can get tapped as well, regardless of suspicion (so, if you call Don Vito, and his line is tapped, your line will now also be tapped, just to see if you'll call any other mobsters).
This of course results in masses of data (much of it duplicated) that the police would have to sort through - that is truly a growth market. Write software for it and become rich.
Also, ISPs are increasingly willing to supply data without a subpoena or warrant.
Using codes and stegonagraphy won't always be much help. For example, a Dutch blackmailer was arrested when he looked at a car-ad that contained coded information about the drop-off point of the money he'd demanded. Turned out that the ad was only clicked on about 3 times (he should have picked a more popular model), so placing an ad wasn't really that "broadcast" as he'd thought. Also, the anonymous proxy service that he paid for ratted him (or at least his credit-card number) out immediately.
The bottom line is that the internet is FAR from a safe haven for terrorists, or even common criminals. Actual real life terrorists are far more likely to use 50 year old spying techniques that still work well (like deap-drop boxes, placing ads in papers, etc.).
Of course, the more people come to realise this, the less useful all these measures become; to get a bit political, the potential for abuse is enormous. The EU is considering making it mandatory for ALL communications (of ALL citizens/companies, no due cause) to be stored for seven years, "just in case".
Just think what a political/economical opponent could do with seven years' worth of your most intimate communications (while terrorists are happily communicating using WWII spying techniques). A bit more than that Nixon dude could ever have achieved with those pesky tapes.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
You are. If they are really serious about this, it's going to mean massive investments for serviceproviders. One thing is collecting customer statistics about source/destination and type of traffic - actually sniffing it, and sending it to central location(FBI/CIA whatever) is an entirely different matter that requires special hardware. E.g. a Juniper monitoring PIC (special expensive linecard for special expensive routers used by serviceproviders) doesn't come cheap, and the money has to come from somewhere - either from increased ISP fees, or increased tax in the unlikely event that the government is going to foot the bill.
It's not like the FBI has an easy time of obtaining a wire tap.
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But, as the First Circuit Appeals Court have recently ruled, store/forward data is not covered under wiretap regulations, so your example is invalid. See http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/30/2
Oh, and if they tap you, or try to get a warrant and fail, they've got to let you know within 90 days of ceasing surveilance (or of the denial of the warrant application).
Unless it's Patriot-related, in which case you'll never know. And it'll *all* be Patriot-related, won't it?
Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim
Why not just encrypt your message with 4096 bit RSA, and then use hping2 to insert your message into the body of an ICMP or TCP packet? That way it would fit right in with the rest of TCP traffic coming from your connection.
yes, it would mean that, and if p2p and alleged "terrorist" and kiddie pornographers completely take advantage of anonymous wifi and various things like that I expect them to outlaw the encryption and unhackable access in various forms. I wouldn't put it past them to eventually require a unique access IP to be tied to a named human, at all times.
Governments are weird and will go to some lengths and spare no expense (all the money is theirs, they just let you use some of it when they want to) to enforce police actions of any sort once they set their collective minds to it. Look at merre olde englande, roving vans to catch people receiving unpaid-for "illegal" TV broadcasts. Geez, look at what is happening in china now and some other places, and who is in the thick of enforcing any amount of government surveillence and censoring and control-good old 'merkin based globalist corporations, all the name brand guys. Look who owns the implantable human tracker microchip, the one called "digital demon" in slang terms- "friendly open source"IBM.
I have no doubt the future will be forced global big brother,massive scale, with little differences between so called nations and global big business, the lines are blurring daily. We are just "human resources" to governments and global bigcos, to buy and sell and command and control, and to do that, they want to track their inventory-to surveil- and to monitor and to enter into databases what their inventory is doing. Encryption, "free" P2P, etc falls well outside those efforts, so eventually they will be outlawed entirely. Look at the proposals for mandatory blackboxes in the cars, and charging a per mile tax/fee will be one day behind that one. Internal passports-coming soon to a checkpoint near you. Newspeak in the media,and don't go against them, lest you become an untermenschen "detainee" and lose any remnants of human-ness.
We are in the "wild wild west" days of the net right now, a few years from now, I don't think it will exist like it does currently. The handwriting, as they say, is on the wall. Free and open and uncensored communication with "the masses" guy is the biggest threat global corporate government faces, so.... they will deal with it whatever it takes.
How many people predicted 3 years ago the sally and molly kidpack were going to get sued for song trading? I know I did, and got roundly accused of tinfoil hat-itis, because "no one is ever going to sue normal small time end users". Got told that a lot of times.
Oh well
There's ways to still communicate semi securely, and the ones who need to do it will do it, but universally? As soon as it gets just a scosh easier and more prevalent so as to start to threaten to become commonplace, expect a rather severe crackdown and smackdown.
"The spooks are good, I'll give them that. I'll assume they'll crack my messages. . .given time, so I just won't give them that time."
The problem with your logic is that it assumes that this is simple enough that every would-be terrorist would just do it that way.
a.) Not looking would be painful if somebody managed to get away with it. Just on the off chance that something MIGHT have been found.
b.) It's simple enough to wipe your fingerprints off a gun or a glass, yet there are people who still don't do this when they commit a crime.
You might be a bad-ass-would-be-terrorist, but the implication (I hope you can forgive my making assumptions here) that it's ineffective is flawed.
"Derp de derp."
Your method is indeed hard to defeat, but mostly because it's so severely limited in expressive power.
"Is it illegal to write a small voice chat application with some encryption without a backdoor for the feds?"
Presumably, if you live in the USA, land of the free, it is or soon will be illegal. Just like it would have been under Saddam Hussein or is under Col. Gaddafi or Dear Leader in North Korea.
You gotta appreciate the freedom that this sort of thing gives you; if the feds couldn't tap your phones how would they be able to protect you???
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Isn't the FCC appointed by the executive branch along with the bulk of the secretary level people at the DOJ? So the Executive branch is asking the Excutive branch to give the Executive branch the power to tap our phones... and the Executive branch unanimously approved it's own actions... The legislation that comes out of this will look seriously inbred... for good reason.
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
Possibly. But since you seem to acknowledge that a given population has a contrary view point, do they have a valid reason?
but I have no problem with the FBI being able to monitor conversation between criminals.
Sure. I'd venture that on a pure principle level, most people don't.
The problems usually begin with what "criminal" means. The ones who write the law have a pretty good idea of how they want the law to be used, and at the start everyone thinks it's a super idea. "Criminal" is written pretty broadly, trying to cover "the bad guys".
As the cliche goes, if you're not a criminal, you have nothing to worry about. If you're paranoid, I'd guess you shut up anytime a cop comes within hearing distance.
Later on, however, the enforcers would really like to make use of this provision because it's pretty potent. So the definition of "the bad guys" shifts a little through any number of legitimate means, such as changing the scope of what a criminal is to adding new crimes that fall under the original scope.
Then, a set of events takes place and all of the sudden it's really bad to be a "terrorist". And a terrorist is sort of loosely defined, but definitely someone who is against "the state" and what it represents, using any and all means at their disposal, including disinformation and propaganda.
Do we have a right to privacy? Sure. Do we have a right to keep criminal conversations private? No. Is this subject to abuse? Sure. Will we be abused by criminals who conspire in private? Of course.
What's a "criminal conversation"? Because history assures us with countless examples that those who make the decision on what a "criminal conversation" is rarely do it with YOUR best interests in mind.
Is discussing with other like minded individuals your displeasure with the current George W. Bush administration and planning activities to educate the public on the facts and what they can do to kick him out of office a "criminal conversation"?
Want an example? The PATRIOT act, which did away with such minor things like habeous corpus (considered by many to be the cornerstone of our justice system and made no one above the law, one of the fundamental checks and balances ) and passed to deal with "extraordinary threat" in these "extraordinary times"..... being used for a copyright case. Legislation that bypasses most of the fundamental US Constitutional rights would NEVER be applied to anything frivolous.
Given the choice between giving criminals the freedom to conspire in private or the ability of the FBI to wiretap criminals, I've no problem opting for the former.
This is the beauty of the whole thing right here. Trivial means in the form of encryption exist that totally negate any benefit law enforcement would gain from such legislation. Most likely, these days, all the necessary tools exist on your computer right now (openssl).
The only people that this would be of assistance against are... well, idiots. Since you know you're going to be discussing things of particular interest to law enforcement, and they have the means to intercept it, it's in your interest to encrypt your communications. So, from a practical sense, the only information you're going to get out of this is that two people spoke to each other which is useless in court.
So... now what? We now have a system in place that's capable of catching none but the most utterly incompetent criminals and can be abused by the government against law abiding citizens.
I know! Let's outlaw encryption. That'll learn 'em.
In any case, the net is a public place. Nothing there is private.
This seems to be particularly specious reasoning. By the same token I can say that the entire planet is a public place, ther
Really, you watch too much tv.
You are exactly the kind of citzen they want! You are afraid of your own shadow!
Ask any dictator and he will tell you that the easiest way to control the people is by making them afraid. The goverment and the media is trying to do exactly that! They supersize the threats, so that you are so afraid that you are willing to give up your LIBERTY!
I'm not saying that there isn't a threat, I'm just saying that it is WAY smaller than fox news makes it look like.
You should watch some international news for a while. You would realize that there are many countries with a tiny crime rate, and most of them CARE A LOT about the civil liberties.
Welcome to the land of the free.
- use the local system by encoded(encrypted) in a different way.
- use a different means of communication.
Al Qaeda has been using human carriers as well as encoding into messages on the internet with switching prearranged e-mail addresses. For all intense purpose, we have no means of tracking them. And the feds know that. Patriot act was not intended to be used against terrorists. Good example is that Ashcroft promised many times prior to pat I that it would only be used against terroists. Then to help push pat II, he made the argument that it had been used against a number of drug pushers, rapists, etc. Ok, so these are bad people. But how soon does it get used against everyday citizens. My guess it about 2.5 years, about 1 month after it was passed.I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's been quoted to death, but you deserve to hear it again.
n t/) while failing in actually stopping real crime and terrorism.
Benjamin Franklin: They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
I would say that the "forces of security" are pretty much running free in Iraq. I'm sure they have no problems tapping whatever phone they like, surveilling who they please and Abu Ghraib showed that some use of torture was being done. This is not a state I would care to live in and neither would you in all likelihood.
However, this is not enough to stop domestic terrorism there, is it? People are still getting their heads chopped off on a regular basis. Hussein ran the place like a prison camp and was able to keep order. We've set up a wishy-washy police state and that doesn't work.
Increasing police powers in a mostly free state tends to lead to what Jerry Pournelle has taken to calling "Anarcho-tyranny". What is Anarcho-Tyranny? Well, basically the police have the power and the right to make any ordinary, law abiding citizen's life hell (witness the number of run-ins with the TSA of late) but not enough power or will to stomp down hard enough to eliminate terrorism, crime, etc. The police apparatus increasingly spends its time enforcing draconian and silly rules (don't take any pictures of that bridge son - http://www.brownequalsterrorist.com/artiststateme
The police have more than enough resources and powers to fight terrorism. The lead up to 9/11 did not involve a valiant group of law enforcement agents fighting against evil, ACLU controlled judges putting legal barriers in their way. No, it involved interdepartmental politics, head office vs branch office nonsense, head in the sand denial and would not have been prevented with more wire-tapping.
I wonder how many slashdotters are black?
Black people have always known that our rights are revokable. It seems to me that only when it starts happening to white people that small things like "civil liberties" get to be a problem.
I expect this post to be marked troll or flamebait at best, but it's truly not meant to be that way. It's just the way I see the world because my husband doesn't even tell me how many times he gets pulled over by the police anymore. It's a routine occurence, not worth notice anymore.
Our church group is decidedly anti-Bush. I think most black folks are, despite the photo-op pics you'll see everywhere. Anyway, we had police officers taping our services now again because our preacher speaks out against the corrupt politics in our city and nation.
There is no need to protest because no one in authority cares and is probably behind it anyway. We simply did the next best thing and got a local cable station to air our services. No more police, they can just set the VCR now.
I see young men get harrassed by the police and their pockets turned out because their skin is dark. I know better than to go to the movies with a large purse or maybe even a purse at all on a crowded weekend day, because no matter how large the white woman's purse in front of me, mine will be the one to be searched.
As far as I can see, white people for too long have thought they were immune from this type of thing. It's probably not even the slashdot crowd. It's be the parents and the grandparents of the slashdot crowd.
I saw a post earlier here that asked, who will begin the revolution? I think it will begin right here.
Isn't the point of this ruling that it is now easier to tap VoIP, no just legal? I mean, if they can get a tap, they can probably get a data tap, too. The point of this ruling was to make VoIP services make it easy to tap.
Just trying to say that you didn't just lose more rights than you've already lost to the Patriot Act.
Try reading your own link! The guy was arrested for disobeying a cop, and not complying with city laws. Who's the idiot who moderated this informative?
So when a cop says I'm being disorderly for speaking my mind, I'm arrested for "being disorderly" and not because of my speech? Suppose I'm walking down the street reading a book and a cop tells me to throw that book away. Under your logic, my refusal constitutes "being disorderly."
Face it, bub. All speech is "disorderly" to someone. As long as it's not fighting words, libel, or slander, it's still protected. Arresting someone for "being disorderly" is a shitty excuse, and attitudes like yours only allow it to spread.
If you disagree, please explain how all those people with pro-Bush signs were not "being disorderly." I'll give bonus Karma points if you can do it without mentioning how their political views were different from the guy who was arrested.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
From reading the article it sounds like he was arrested for disobeying the police.
Try FINISHING reading the article! Hell, try getting to the bottom of page one at least!
A judge threw out the case because it was not a legal arrest and because the officer's order was not lawful.
The arrest was an abuse of force and a violation of constitutional rights. The judge scolded the officer for trampling on free speech.
If you get to page two there's a second arrest described: So, naturally, they arrested him. Asked why, the officer said, "It's the content of your sign that's the problem." Arrested solely for the content of his speech. That arrest was thrown out by a judge as invalid as well.
When you have the government abusing false arrests to suppress speech, and using threats of false arrests to intimidate countless other people into "voluntarily" confinement in "free speech zones", that's a pretty serious problem. I know it drips of irony, but I'd call that UnAmerican. And it sure appears the judge in at least the first case agreed.
If you make it to page three you'll see there are civil lawsuits underway for these ILLEGAL ARRESTS and violations of civil rights.
And there's a lovely quote on page four from the spokesperson for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (a spinoff of the Homeland Security Department) who all but outright states that a peaceful anti-war speech is a terrorist act.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Just launch tcpdump or ethereal or whatever. You can get the whole conversation.
What? You don't have a key to decrypt it? And how is it MY problem?
The guy was disobeying the cop who told him to go back to the licensed protest area. He refused to OBEY THE LAW.
Heay genius, if this guy violated the law then why the hell did the judge throw out the the case and scold the officer for the arrest?
He was arrested. Simple as that.
Yes, exactly! And it was an UNLAWFUL ARREST!
It was the officer who failed to obey the law!
The person who was arrested was a law-abiding victim of a false arrest.
However we are not talking about some rouge cop who made a mistake. He was obeying directives given to the entire police force. The Whitehouse administration/secret dervice issued these orders.
And if you keep reading you'll see we are hardly talking about a single arrest. We are talking about a multiple arrests at multiple places and multiple times. We are also talking about countless other people being intimidated and oppressed with threats of (unlawful) arrests. It has been a systematic willfull supression of speech and a violation of civil rights.
I'll give karma points if you can tell me how any cop walking down the street can just tell you to throw a book away.
Oh goodie! I get free karma points! Oh wait, I hit the karma-cap ages ago.
Try reading the bottom half of page two of the link. The part where the Crawford police cheif says that you can be arrested for wearing a button that simply says "Peace". Presumably you'd be just as arrestable for prominently carrying a book with a big-fat "Peace" on the cover.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It will depend on just how far reaching they expect these powers to be. Wiretapping is an accident of the original phone system. It wasn't designed to be tappable but due to its basic design it was. As we move away from the old circuit switched, centralized architecture, and start to add things like encryption, tapping no longer "falls out" from the design but instead has to be designed in.
Prior to the 1994 CALEA act there was no technological requirement for wire tapping. If a law enforcement agent showed up with a warrant, the phone company would help them set up a tap. However, there was no requirement that the technology being used by the provider support tapping. It just happened to.
VOIP, running on a packet switched network, doesn't automatically support wire tapping. The VOIP "carriers" only "carry" those calls that terminate to one of their points-of-presence connecting to the regular phone network. For calls which are VOIP end-to-end, they only see the setup but the actual data never touches anything they own. So, what are you going to mandate support the tapping? It's can't really be the network because there is no VOIP network. So, tapping is going to have to involve the end point hardware or software.
Now, the next question is: what is VOIP? If I write software that sends voice over the Internet is that now VOIP and do I have to include provisions for the government to listen in? What happens if I don't?
So, are we "increasing police powers?" My original comment was in response to a typical "anything the police want to do to protect us against terrorism is good" post. You raise the larger question of is it ok to extend existing powers.
I think that as long as it is a question of requiring access rather than trying to mandate technology I'm willing to listen to the arguments. However, I think that trying to mandate technology is a disaster and will lead to additional encroachments on a lot of basic rights. To sum up with a simple minded analogy - the police can get a warrant to search my premises. They can even get a warrant that allows them to search it secretly. Why should't we mandate that all locks be openable by a government master key?
You shouldn't make the assumption that most people of any world view, including religions like Islam or Christainity were raised from Birth to believe it. I was not raised from birth to believe anything, I feircly believe my religion and would give up my life for it, however my religion never asks me to take anyone else's life. My parents don't agree with my relgion my friend's don't agree with my religion it's different than what most people who have been around me my whole life have said, but I researched it and went into it with open eyes long after I'd grown up and I believe it all every bit, I believe when I die I'll go to heaven, death doesn't bother me anymore.