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Pay To Have Your Phone Tapped
An anonymous reader writes "The Globe and Mail is running an interesting story over who should carry the cost of wiretapping (registration may be required): 'Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals.'"
at least the money comes up front... Not as if you aren't paying already.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
On your phone bill or through your taxes elsewhere.
Will he next ask for a tax for doughnuts?
I've also been looking for someone to kick me in the nuts, for $10/hr. Any takers?
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The phone company (Bell) will eventually win, jacking up prices at this suggestion for the supposed costs involved in the physicaly act of wiretapping. The government can't win, as it has a) the Bell Canada lobby against it and b) the canadian public totally against it. Eventually, these fees will be hidden in the cost of the phone service, per line, with no explanation, except that the fees will be diverted to a waretapping fund.
Police say they cannot - and should not - be forced to pay the often hefty costs involved in carrying out court-approved wiretaps and message searches, warning that investigations will suffer if they are expected to pick up the tab.
BS. Law enforcement is publically funded. If it's not funded enough, fine; we the voters will think about giving you more money. But making an end run around the process just because law enforcement in the new millenium is sooo expensive, thereby giving them a cash flow that actually encouragesthem to wiretap frivolously, is not an appropriate solution.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
I guess the answer is pretty obvious - no matter who initially paid for this, customers will be the ones shouldering the cost.
This has already happened to the airline industry, guess who is paying for the security tax7?
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
Nickel and diming is still a hidden cost, unless its itemised on every bill.
Here's a version of the article with no registration required.
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Lovely. Tap folks and charge them for it in the process. Ya gotta love law enforcement.
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
Doesn't matter if it's a direct tax on your phone use, or an increase in your income tax (well, it does matter in terms of fairness - do the rich/poor/heavy-phone-users pay more or less of the total antiterrorism bill? - but ultimately, it is the mass of taxpayers that will bear the burden)
Well, the difference is if I don't have a phone I wouldn't have to pay. Fortunately, I wouldn't be tapped either. Sounds like a win-win situation!
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Who do you think pays for wiretapping, already? Magical fairies?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
And with a burden shared equivalently by all carriers in this age of record corporate profits, who is going to pay for that? You will, but there will be no line-item on your bill letting you know. Just an across-the-board price hike.
Where your family will get billed for the bullet after you get executed.
On the other hand, who am I to talk, as the Netherlands is the country with the most wiretaps in the world annually, or at least the most open about the amount they wiretap.
- -- Truth addict for life.
**That's why I support opt-in taxes. Liberals want to pay for health care, environment, etc? Great, you do that. Me, I'll just check this box here for defense, and maybe that one for education.**
oh that would be great if people would plan ahead and there would be a cheap way to exclude those not paying from getting the benefits(don't want to pay for keeping the roads in good shape? well, lose your ability to receive any goods transferred on those roads.. the point being that a system like that would ultimately suck because people are short sighted and can't see the connections between things that make their daily life possible).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
On top of this, there is also a $2.95 Telus long distance administration charge. This charge I'm told is for using Telus's long distance service, regardless if I make any long distance calls. I hear that if I switch long distance carriers, this administration charge increases.
They could easily add a $0.25 "security enhancement" charge to my phone bill.
MRS. BUTTLE: Thank you. And this is my receipt for your receipt.
(sigh)
Blockwars: free, multiplayer, Tetris like game
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Guess who's already paying for that phone tapping? Here's a hint: it sure ain't the criminals, for the most part.
Duh.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
"I understand this concern on behalf of the taxpayers. People want value for money. That's why we always insist on the principal of Information Retrieval charges. It's absolutely right and fair that those found guilty should pay for their periods of detention and the Information Retrieval procedures used in their interrogations."
Only charge those who are being wiretapped. That way they can see the charge in their bill, know they're being tapped, and stop using that phone line to conduct their illegal activies. This ultimately reduces the cost of wire tapping to zero. ;-)
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Well if were getting charged for it, we might as well use it eh?: "Plot, bomb, president, plane, nuclear, chemical, hi-jack, kill, big-mac.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
As several others have pointed out, all wiretapping, email snooping and other communications intercepting are inherently invasions of privacy, but are sometimes needed. If the police agency asking for it has to pay the costs out of their regular operating budget, then they have to ask themselves if the benefits are worth the cost. Having a fund like this means it's effectively free for them, making "fishing expeditions" more attractive, and invites abuse. Yes, I know they still have to persuade a judge to sign the warrant, but I'd still rather have the police reluctant to use them without good reason.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
In Europe, it's common knowledge that the telcos pay the costs of the wiretapping infrastructure (upfront, I don't believe they're swallowing it).
;-)
This is very nice for the authorities, as they could have a system built to their spec but not pay a single cent for it.
What is interesting is that some time ago, a large German telco made a mistake and billed several customers for the wiretapping (their detailed phonebill showed lots of connections to a number where the calls were presumably forwarded to).
Obviously, the authorities were not amused at all.
It has not happened again since
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Sheesh, people! It should be so clear - if a person is causing a problem, you send them the bill. Just charge the suspect. Make sure to get the money before you do it. You could tell them it was for... I don't know, a nation-wide iPod purchasing campaign.
I'm sorry it's called a police budget. I'm a Canadian and I'm sick of the cops trying to weasel more and more money out of us taxpayers. They squander their budgets on police brutality and corruption cases, so it's not my fault they have fallen a tad short these days. And I'm not paying for it. This kind of cash grab always happens when the Liberals are in. It's worse when the Tories get in... they just hand the cops more money without asking. The Liberals always want to ask us for more money.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It's wrong for "successful" people to pretend that they are that way only on their own merits and efforts. Everyone benefits from a stable society. Those with more, benefit more -- and probably disproportionately. Since they have more to lose, a stable society is more valuable to them. Therefore they should pay more.
Oh, wait. No one seems to be a believer in "capitalism" when confronted with the idea of taxes as payment for social goods. Suddenly then we don't believe in paying for what we get.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Get a load of this:
"We're thinking, amongst ourselves, 25 cents. Whether that would cover off all the costs, we don't know. We haven't done the analysis on it," Supt. Grue said.
What a maroon.
People are looking at Voice over IP as a solution to all this idiocy, but really, not because of its technological advantages at all. They're looking at it because telephone communication is too mainstream and has been saddled with all these extra charges, surveillance, telemarketing, et cetera, none of which is optional to pay for. If VOIP was mainstream, it would have exactly the same crap tacked onto it.
I don't see why i should have to buy anything but what I want to buy... which is commmunication with family, friends, government, and businesses. Telcom's should not be forced to offer 'services' like this at all, they should only be motivated to offer services that benefit and attract customers.
If the country thinks they should be using wire taps that is totally separate, and the budget certainly does exist.
I wonder how they'll deal with refunds... :-)
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Since they have more to lose, a stable society is more valuable to them. Therefore they should pay more.
I think that's the most idiotic argument for a "progressive" tax system that I've ever heard.
By your logic, the poor should be paying more for medicare and social security since obviously, they have the most to lose if those go down.
Taxes are not a way to "keep society stable". Taxes are a way for citizens to pay for what the government does for the common good. It's debatable what any persons "fair share" in this is but pretending that it is somehow proportional to what they have to lose is preposterous.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I actually think this whole thing is doublespeak.
...
... it's a charge that is wholly the result of national security concerns. As such, it belongs (a) being regulated by external oversight (not just giving Grue a blank check for some amount that results from charging each customer what seems to be not an overly burdensome amount); and (b) coming from the public in the form of a tax.
...).
/.'er has said, the public will cover the costs, it's just a question of who has to stick them with the bill. So this story is about all of these people playing musical chairs to avoid getting stuck with delivering the check. Not even covering it. And it's a totally appropriate expenditure in my mind.
The company -- Bell Canada -- is doing a nice job of saying that it's concerned for the customer. Doesn't want to increase costs covered by the customer,
But what they mean is that (a) they don't want the customer to see this charge as part of their Bell Canada (TM) phone bill; AND (b) they don't want to cover the costs for processing that charge...
But mostly Bell Canada doesn't want to be seen as the SOURCE of this cost. Which is completely understandable AND completely fair. This is not a charge related to upgrading their network or switches or
Grue doesn't want to have to justify the costs to the public and so that's why he wants to just pass it onto them under the auspices of the phone company, always an easy villian (behemoth,
As every
At least the phone company says it's willing to split the costs: half coming from LE, half from the phoneco itself; whereas LE just wants to charge everyone a quarter b/c, as Grue says, that seems about right (next breath he says that he hadn't done the analysis on those numbers yet--whatever).
Agreed, but the side-effect of this is becoming a plutocracy, which the USA now is (and has been for quite some time).
Nonsense. Political power and the government is NOT in the hands of "the wealthy classes". Political power is squarely in the hands of ALL the people. Some people might be too stupid to exercise their political power but to pretend that it is in the hands of the wealthy in a democracy is a travesty of the truth.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I think it is grossly unfair to make everybody pay for wiretapping when the majority of people will themselves never be wiretapped. Kind of like paying the private copying levy on blank CDs when all you are doing is backing up your data.
To be fair, they should only add the levy to the phone bills of people who are being wiretapped.
Ideology is for ideots.
In purely economic terms, the wealthy elements of society have the most to lose from social disruption. In every government program (especially defense, transportation, and any form of research) those that gain the most from government expenditures are those with the most invested in the system. Those benefits either come directly (defense contract pay pretty damn well) or indirectly (I don't need to hire a security firm to protect my apartment and my nice computers because we all pay a little for a police department).
GPP is correct. A progressive tax is fairer because those that can pay more most defintely gain more from the system. You are right; "taxes are not a way to 'keep society stable'", but what you are missing is that the services those taxes provide ARE what help keep society stable.
I'd be willing to posture that even those "pure" welfare payments (in the old sense of the word as opposed to corporate subsidies which definitely benefit the wealthy overwhelmingly) like medicaid help keep society stable becuase they are a symbol of a level of compassion towards the weakest members of society.
BTW, neither of your two examples are technically taxes. We pay social security to pay for the previous generation's retirement. Presumably, our kids will pay for social security to pay for our retirement. I'm less certain about medicare but I think it works similarly.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
If VOIP was mainstream, it would have exactly the same crap tacked onto it.
/dev/dsp|nc localhost 7000"
Really?
Allow me to post something that I wrote last time Slashdot ran a "tapping VoIP" article:
Whoever thinks that they are going to wiretap all VoIP networks at the FBI is living in dreamland. Let's take a brief look at a quick VoIP system that I'm going to design. I'll even publish the source code, right here on Slashdot. It will take me a few seconds to write:
#!/bin/bash
# smallvoip.sh
# VoIP software capable of bypassing FBI wiretap regulations.
# Warning: use or posession of this software may be a federal crime in the United States of America. Download this software at your own risk.
# Copyright 2004, 0x0d0a, released under the GPL
# Usage: smallvoip remote-username remote-ip-address
# You must have a shell account on the remote machine.
# Run on each of the two machines involved in the call.
# Duplex audio support required.
# TODO: pass through lame or oggenc for better bandwidth usage. This will make the second line slightly longer.
# LIMITATIONS: only one user per host at once
# I recommend setting up public-key ssh authentication with this software.
nc -l -p 7001 >/dev/dsp &
ssh -R 7000:`hostname`:7001 $1@$2 "cat
Hmm. My high-security, encrypted Internet phone doing VoIP.
Now, I have to ask the people in charge of Homeland Security: do you really, truly, honestly think that you have *any* hope of keeping anyone from writing such a two-line program? Any *IX user with a bit of experience could write this piece of software and distribute it to the world. In addition, the fact that it contains voice data is essentially undetectable to the outside world, so there is no practical way to "catch" someone using such a system.
It is true that this is a very simple program, but it can also be very easily extended into a full-blown encrypted voice communication program, without the minor limitations here that make this annoying for day-to-day use. In addition, there are a vast number of extant Internet systems for communicating that cannot be wiretapped by the FBI -- PGP/GPG contains no back doors to allow wiretapping of email communications. Frost (on the Freenet platform) can disguise the very fact that an association exists between two users. These systems are rarely used, but they are also not hard to deploy, and if the FBI insists on forcing conventional voice communication to be breakable, there is little incentive not to use systems such as the one that I have demonstrated here.
May we never see th
Your powerful message shook the cynicism from my eyes. (cue patriotic music...)
No longer will I assume that lobbiests funnel money to our representatives to buy influence. I now realize that they simply want to be friendly.
No longer shall I think negative thoughts when Dick C. invites energy companies into private meetings to write energy bills. They were probably just playing Risk or Dungeons & Dragons.
No longer will I assume that George was skipping National Guard duty in Texas rather than slogging through the jungles of Vietnam because of his family connections. It was probably just the luck of the draw.
I will recognize that the DMCA was for the benefit of all citizens of our great country and not a cynical manuever to extend Mickey Mouse's value. I feel better knowing that my copyrights are now protected for decades after I die.
I will rejoice that the grassroots efforts of the voters of California managed to unseat a lawfully elected govenor without the influence of outside money. Jeb next, anyone?
From now on the great words of the commie freak Arlo will echo in my ears: "This Land is YOUR Land; This Land if MY Land!" Assuming, of course, that this is considered "fair use" under the current law.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
That happened in Germany two years ago :-)
Some customers of the mobile phone provider "O2" got bills with a lot of "outgoing voicemail" connections to one certain telephone number.
That number was used by the authorities to record the customers calls - so warning the suspects that they were under observation.
According to some spokesperson of "O2" the reason was an erroneous software update.
Two year old (german)article at heise.de and a follow up.
That's the way it is now. The cops are getting billed by the phone company for the wire taps and records searches and are supposed to pay for it out of their operating budgets. The money for wire taps, informants, etc are supposed to be budgetted out of the public funds that they receive for their annual budgets. Where things are getting complicated and where the controversy lies is that some police forces are refusing to pay the bills when they arrive and instead using the money for other things (unspecified).
They're effectively breaking the law, but the phone company can't do anything about it. It's not like they can just cut the police off for not paying the phone bill.
From my point of view, I've already paid for this stuff in my taxes and they've got parts of their budget already allocated for it. I do not wish to pay for this twice.
It seems to me that by the police being allowed to have a special "wiretap surcharge" put on the bill that just makes it easier for them to say "let's tap a whole bunch of folks and hope for the best, since it's free." What crap. At least now they have to put a little thought into the consequences (since it seems more and more a judge's signature isn't required). At least if it comes out of their "budget" they have to convince the government to up their budget. Besides, at least here in the US they are already crying "poverty" and confiscating everything worth anything criminals. Maybe a little better management of their money (rather than their tricked out shiney Ford Explorers, Crown Vics, Harleys, and other high end vehicles) would allow them a few more dollars to violate our supposed rights.
The next thing you know we'll start seeing a "Future Jail Surcharge" explicitly on your taxes -- viewed as an investment in "your possible future incarceration."
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
If this surcharge is put in place then obviously the price will need to be adjusted occasionally. By exaggerating the need for wiretaps the police chiefs can increase their budgets and their headcount without even raising taxes because the citizen only sees an increase in his phone and internet bills.
Don't think it could happen? More than once, a friend of mine who compiles crime statistics was pressured by his female boss to massage the numbers for domestic violence cases because that is her pet peeve. She couldn't flat out say to change the numbers but it was clear what she wanted, especially after several years of this. He ended up reclassifying certain types of cases that had never been counted under DV before. Presumably she wanted to show an increased need for funding either for her own satisfaction or as a political favor to the director of that program.
I guarantee you that if someone can bump up their headcount or budget by doing more wiretaps then more and more wiretaps will get performed regardless of the true need. Peace. Big Brother loves you.
you may want to look further than simple cash before refusing the senior generation social security. I don't know what it's like in the U.S., but in australia a large amount of the previous generations sacrificed their standard of living so that my standard of living could be better. My parents didn't go to Uni and worked very hard so that it would be my right to be able to be educated. I'm guessing it's the same for a lot of others. Our generation is rich in all senses because of the previous generations sacrifice. It might make us all better people to remember that.
Really, one of the problems I can see with this whole; you pay for your own wiretap business is the following transaction.
It is about 10:45 in the morning in an undisclosed city. The apartment is worn down and the furniture mostly consists of milk crates and things found outside of construction sites, much like your typical bachelor pad. A man stands in the midst of the room, knee deep in his shag carpet with a bill in one hand and a phone in the other pressed tightly up against his ear. He appears to be in his late twenties with about five days growth of beard, he taps his foot impatiently as he stands staring hard at the bill, as if that would make the inscrutable charges vanish. The line picks up...
Operator: Hello, this is [phone company x], how can we help you?
Man: Yes, I have a question about an item on my phone bill.
Operator: I'm sure that you do sir, or else you wouldn't be calling us. Could you tell me what the item is?
Man: Yeah, it's a twenty-five cent surcharge with the code WT next to it.
Operator (Pauses for a moment): According to our records, that's supposed to be there.
Man: (Confused) But what is it, I'm looking at last month's bill and it isn't there.
Operator (again pauses, some typing can be heard): Yes, the charge was added this month.
Man (a little upset): Yes, but for what.
Operator (pausing once again, and letting out a loud sigh): For the wiretap sir.
Man (really upset): The wiretap?
Operator: Yes sir, the wiretap that the Feds put on your phone last month to monitor you.
The man then hangs up the phone, tossing it casually onto the couch. He then goes into the kitchen and grabs a bite to eat.
Of course that's a bit of an exaggeration, the phone company is never that helpful. All right, so this was mostly a joke, deal.
That wasn't Arlo, that was his dad Woody.
I recently read the following article online in the Globe & Mail web site and am quite concerned.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servle
I believe that funding for wiretapping costs should be provided according to the cost-sharing plan that Bell Canada and others propose. There are a number of reasons why I feel their proposal is attractive:
While I sometimes don't agree with some of your stances, I did vote for you in the last election because I felt that, in spite of the scandals the Liberals have had recently, Liberal policy was better than the alternatives available. I hope you will seriously consider this input from one of your constituents.
Sincerely yours,
Paul-Andre Panon
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
This is great!
More reason to build a free encrypted internet based voice network. With surcharges, taxes, roaming fees, etc. It will either provide some much needed competition for the telecoms or at least give people an alternatives.
Though personally I think it should be designed with async in mind since its much more efficient to communicate asynchronously, IMO. Kinda like instant voice messaging..
And if it were p2p/distributed it would be more difficult for a central authority to request the ability to tap the connections, demand taxes/fees, etc. But governments will get away with anything they want as long as their citizens let them.
In the end, the consumer will always pay for being tapped. Some way or another....
I would prefer to have the costs explicitly listed on the bill. In that case consumers would see what enormous costs the tapping is causing and how little (compared to the costs) results we're getting.
Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals
Allow me to laugh. We're not talking about 25 cents. Perhaps this are the costs the police needs to do the actual tapping. Currently providing the capability of tapping makes up 15% of your telco bill. Perhaps it is less for large telcos but for the averade city carrier (in germany) this figure is correct.
These costs will drive the concentration process in the telco and ISP business. New regulation in germany require ISPs to have email tapping equipment ready for use which must comply certain standards. Those costs 100.000+ $.
Regards, Martin
CEO's get to vote the same number of times as the rest of us. Yeah they lobby and run commercials on all different sides of issues and candidates, but in the end, it's the rest of us who win or lose elections, because we all get only one vote.
Voting is not the be all and end all of democracy. Lobbying can matter far more than voting. Especially somewhere like the US where the 2 major political parties agree on many issues.
Armed with this information, use OpenBSD to set up firewalls with ALTQ packet prioritizing, PF stateful filtering and IPsec secure VPNs between all endpoints.
Setup Asterisk PBX' behind the firewalls and network them over the VPNs.
Now let them try to monitor your calls.
(No, this doesn't help with calls you terminate with an insecure 3rd party, like a VoIP provider gatewaying your calls out to the PSTN. The "P" in PSTN is for "Public", so you need to treat it as completely insecure and act accordingly.)
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
Just felt I need to let you know, that while I support balanced budgets, I really hate this:
Federal Taxes->Federal Grants to State Governments->State Services.
If it's going to run a state service, it should be run from taxes at a state level. Why? Each step the money goes through wastes some of it. Some states might not need the service. Some might have a different solution.
As far as 'raiding social security' every administration has 'raided' it. It's actually in the codes, any surplus is placed in savings bonds.
In any case, the deficit was mostly caused by:
decreased revenues from the dot.com bubble bust
decreased revenues and expense from 9/11
stock market loss from Enron/Worldcom
continuing costs from the war on terror.
Meanwhile, home ownership is at an all time high, a recovery is continuing, and unemployment is still several points below most of Europe.
I don't read AC A human right
His kids might barely be able to phonetically sound out the words to "Curious George" and they are still going to be worth $N,000,000,000 more than you or me where N is some integer value greater than one. At this point in time or any point in time in the foreseeable future.
I notice that in your response you also convienently skipped over: connections, real estate, and all the other benefits starting out rich provide. It is a popular mythology of this country that we all start out equal, and I still firmly believe that we as individuals have more opportunities in this country than just about any other country on this planet. But, to claim that wealth gives you no advantages in the race to gather more wealth is naive to the point of willful ignorance.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
This sort of argument is what drives people to Libertarianism. Nobody here is typing about wether or not we should help mom or dad. We're typing about a TAX. (actually we used to be typing about a tax to split out the cost of wiretaps but obviously that's fallen far by the wayside). And that's where the whole "government is here to take care of you" thing really falls on it's face. You (personally) don't get off the hook of taking care of your parents because you pay for SS (or whatever your country calls it)... but that is definetly the way quite a lot of people act. Viewed from a slightly more "radical" (or realistic) perspective: why are you forcing your neighbor to pay for your parents care? Answers to this question usually devolve quickly into talk about "social contract" and similar nonexistent vagueisms that concentrate on the warm fuzzy "lets take care of one another" while blotting out the implementing reality of tax guys with guns and flash bang grenades.
At any rate that's a lot of typing to say that I certainly do agree that we owe our parents our lives. I'm just not sure that I owe mine your income.
Token on topic point- taxes that make expenses easier to account are good imo. If this means we break them out into to many things for people to think about... maybe people will get to thinking about -that-. Just IMHO.
> George was elected by the people.
Wrong, he would have lost if not had been for the chad thing in Florida which was related to none other than Jeb Bush, did you not hear about the thousands of 'lost' DEMOCRAT votes sitting in Oliphants office near a boiler? Jeb Bush put her there. Anyone claiming all that as coincedence is delusional at best. Then when the minority speakers tried to point this fact out and get the votes counted, congress refused to listen to 2 dozen or so people because they did not have a congressmans signature, when asked, each one told the same story, as they tried to get in contact with every congressman, they were snubbed and told they were unavailable, NONE of them would sign the requests.
Someone asked me the difference between ignorance and apathy, I told them I don't know and I don't care.