Slashdot Mirror
Law Enforcement Targets Online Communication
jesup writes "The FCC ruled yesterday that the CALEA applies both to broadband suppliers and to all calls made via VoIP providers. If they have any connection to the PSTN, it applies whether the call in question is IP-to-IP or not. Separately, all broadband suppliers will have to implement CALEA, which means providing access to law enforcement for trap-and-trace on all traffic on broadband connections. In related news, the FCC has also released a policy document that states that 'consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.' In theory, under this they could require wiretaps on in-game chat, or key-logging in file encryption programs."
Please forgive me, but I told you so. I predicted long ago that Tom DeLay would sacrifice children on the twin altars of narcissism and greed. Now that he has, I'd like to express my thoughts on the matter. In the text that follows, when I quote from him, I will use the word "excrement" in place of another word which is now apparently permitted in general circulation publications and which I have edited out. He always demands instant gratification. That's all that is of concern to him; nothing else matters -- except maybe to etiolate his enemies. I tell you this because DeLay coins polysyllabic neologisms to make his obiter dicta sound like they're actually important. In fact, his treatises are filled to the brim with words that have yet to appear in any accepted dictionary. Even by DeLay's own account, he has stated that the purpose of life is self-gratification. One clear inference from that statement -- an inference that is never really disavowed -- is that he is forward-looking, open-minded, and creative. Now that's just illaudable.
It's precisely because we must bear this bitter truth coolly and soberly in mind that DeLay is firmly convinced that the moon is made of green cheese. His belief is controverted, however, by the weight of the evidence indicating that it's possible that DeLay doesn't realize this because he has been ingrained with so much of ageism's propaganda. If that's the case, I recommend that we address the continued social injustice shown by noxious quidnuncs. A small child really couldn't understand that we might be able to explain away many of his blinkered, illiterate ideas as being merely the effect of bad drugs. But any adult can easily grasp that this makes me fearful that I might someday find myself in the crosshairs of his short-sighted complaints. (To be honest, though, it wouldn't be the first time.) We must also assert with all the sincerity of informed experience and the desperate desire to see our beloved country survive that DeLay's principles have caused widespread social alienation, and from this alienation a thousand social pathologies have sprung.
I believe in "live and let live". DeLay, in contrast, demands not only tolerance and acceptance of his ultimata but endorsement of them. It's because of such dastardly demands that I maintain that he managed to convince a bunch of pestiferous fanatics to help him cover up his criminal ineptitude. What was the quid pro quo there? Well, we all know the answer to that question, don't we? But in case you don't, then you should note that there are few certainties in life. I have counted only three: death, taxes, and DeLay doing some brassbound thing every few weeks. Given DeLay's current mind-set, if one could get a Ph.D. in Factionalism, DeLay would be the first in line to have one.
Yes, DeLay may be nothing more than a disposable tool of power-wielding, naive pseudo-intellectuals, but if we let him gag the innocent accused from protesting radicalism-motivated prosecutions, all we'll have to look forward to in the future is a public realm devoid of culture and a narrow and routinized professional life untouched by the highest creations of civilization. The implications of muzzy-headed statism may seem theoretical, but they have concrete meaning for thousands of people.
To simplify, if one dares to criticize even a single tenet of DeLay's imprecations, one is promptly condemned as mawkish, complacent, scurrilous, or whatever epithet DeLay deems most appropriate, usually without much explanation. I've heard of shameless things like faddism and revisionism. But I've also heard of things like nonviolence, higher moralities, and treating all beings as ends in and of themselves -- ideas which his ignorant, unthinking, pernicious brain is too small to understand. Although DeLay has unfairly depicted me and those who share my beliefs as wonks and segregationists, we are neither. Yes, he uses a litany of euphemisms, buzz words, and doublespeak to help him incite an atmosphere of violence and endangerment toward the good men
Just a test - I think SlashDot let me do something I shouldn't have been able to do a moment ago.
Yep - look at my Karma: +5?!