Flying the Wiretapped Skies

An anonymous reader writes "The FBI is lobbying the FCC for the power to to quickly wiretap in-flight broadband services under CALEA. The feds are afraid terrorists will use the services to coordinate hijackings or remotely activate bombs, and they want to be able to interrupt or redirect a airplane's Internet access during a crisis, or to start sniffing packets within 10 minutes of identifying a suspicious passenger and getting court approval. Here is the FCC filing."

Comments

Re:Ummm -- sure.

[WillAffleckUW]

Great idea. Ought to work wonderfully for those terrorists who send each other e-mails with "We will attact the Great Satan today with UA Flight 255 at 10:33 exactly!" in plaintext.

How it will work with a one-time-pad set of coded messages is something else again.

I can't decide whether I'm more disturbed by my government's attempts to get more power over honest citizens or over their apparent dependence on the Bad Guys all having IQs in the room temperature range. Celsius.

Or an even easier agreed to code book that has something like "Dang, that hot girl in 25B is giving me that look again! Wish she was going to Acapulco with me, we could laze on the beach after days of good hot fun, with martinis on ice!" sent over ICQ ...

Which could carry all the info needed and not be sniffable since the data is embedded in the code words.

Seriously, why do we employ these morons at Homeland Insecurity?

Doing more

[amightywind]

Agreed. Why anyone should be opposed to a federal agency shutting down a wireless system when cellphones were used by terrorists to detonate explosives in Madrid is beyond comprehension. I applaud the move. I just with we were doing more to kick these psycho-muslims in the balls.

Re:If the terrorists want to kill you at 30k feet.

[WillAffleckUW]

Call me crazy, but if the FBI needs 10 minute wiretapping on a WIFI setup to keep my plane from being blown up by a bunch of Islamic radicals, then so be it. It's better to be a live chump who's email was intercepted by the feds than a dead one who's viagra spam remained a secret.

OK, I'll call you crazy.

None of these measures will actually work to deter the attack of a well-trained group that adapts to circumstances and is patient.

As al-Qaeda has been shown - repeatedly - to be.

Now go back to Russia and take your comrades in DC with you.

It's sad

[Irish_Samurai]

This is, IMHO, the most accurate statement made about the topic, yet no one has modded parent up. People would rather:

1. Debate if this violates their privacy
2. Show off how smart they are by pointing out a logic flaw in its use.

How about looking at ALL of the angles, not just two. I guess I'm going to be modded Troll now too.

Re:Regarding the Indymedia incident

[October_30th]

Yes.

Even though I do have certain affection for people who cultivate and smoke their own grass crops, bragging about any breach of the local legal code in public is a demonstration of such sheer stupidity that they deserve to get caught.