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FCC Giving Veto Power to FBI Over VoIP?
An anonymous reader writes "In this article, the FCC reveals that if you're using VoIP products at your own behest then you may have personal legal requirements to provide the FBI with access to information they might want to intercept. Or to put it another way, using encryption with VoIP can prevent the FBI from implementing wire taps."
Not quite true.
There is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the government to compell a person to testify against themselves. That includes providing encyption keys.
If the a policeman can prove to a judge that a search is needed, they can search. There is nothing in our Constitution that says that search must be successful, and much that says individuals have the absolute right to deny success by denying information.
Yet another reason our government is a cancer on the Constitution.
Nothing. People are, by and large, subservient cowards who will stand by and let fellow citizens be abused, allow themselves to be frightened by power-hungry governments, and well, just bloody well do what they're told. The American Revolution was a long time ago, and nobody particular remembers or cares to remember what got those guys so up in arms. Nearly half of Americans are so unfit that they don't even bother showing up at the polls, and a good chunk of those that do are simply motivated by fear broadcast to them by the spin doctors who know just how intellectually and emotionally incompetent most people are.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I work in an Australian University. Recently a web server managed (using the term loosely) by a member of academic staff got pwned. The crackers put up copies of a couple of banking sites and a paypal site. First we heard was a cease and desist from paypal which contained a whole lot of helpful information on what evidence we were obliged to retain for the FBI. Sorry, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but in Australia the FBI got business with my business!
Oh say can you see, by the books burning bright,
What so proudly we hailed at human rights last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and and bright stars, will burn in the night,
O'er ramparts unwatched, were so tragically leaking?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> individuals have the absolute right to deny success by denying information
Can someone not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice in their own case? (I do realize you were talking about the Constitution..)
Well its a subject for heated debate whether the constitution does assure you a right to privacy and what the bounds of that right are. When telephones came in to common use in the early twentieth century it was routine for the police to listen in on suspected criminals or maybe anyone they wanted to find some dirt on.
... wait for it ... the police were not entering the persons home so they were not invading the privacy of their home. Here is a good link on the history of the right to privacy.
.vs. Connecticut it laid the foundation for much of our modern right to privacy, in this case it was an individuals right to practice birth control without state intervention. This evolved in to the right to an abortion in Roe v Wade.
The first Supreme Court case tested wire taps in 1928 in fact found in favor of wire tapping, because
Here is a particularly important part on wire tapping. Justice Louis D. Brandeis was writing in the dissent in Olmstead v. United States (1928). His view would ultimately prevail years later and is now in grievous danger of being overturned again by a rising tide of Fascism in the U.S. :
"Whenever a telephone line is tapped, the privacy of the persons at both ends of the line is invaded, and all conversations between them on any subject, and although proper, confidential, and privileged, may be overheard. . . .
The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings, and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure, and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the one most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment."
Its important to read this stuff these days. The right to privacy was the cornerstone of the confirmation hearing of our new Chief Justice Roberts, names like Olmstead and Griswold. There is a suspicion Judge Roberts appointment is designed to overturn all the cases affirming right to privacy, a right to not have your phone tapped, a right to abortions, a right to access birth control.
Religious fundamentalists banned birth control in Connecticut in the 19th century. When this law was challenged in 1965 in Griswold
J. Edgar Hoover used wire taps and his control of the FBI to accumulate vast amounts of dirt on anyone and everyone, and insured he held an iron grip on the helm of the FBI and in fact the U.S. in general for decades. No one would challenge him because he had dirt on everyone. He was the ultimate defiler of the right to privacy. With modern techology and the collapse of our right to privacy thanks to fear mongering politicians the potential is great for the rise of new J. Edgars who are even more powerful and more dangerous. A leading candidate is George W's new National Intelligen Director, John Negroponte. He doesn't control the FBI he controls the CIA, the NSA and every spying resource the U.S. has now. Negroponte was infamous for supporting right wing death squads in Central America that did Fascism proud.
@de_machina
Okay, so here's what I'm wondering.
Suppose I'm an evil person intent on doing evil things and I decide to communicate with my evil minions around the country using some sort of encrypted VOIP-type of thing that I had one of my evil minions put together.
Suppose further that the US Government gets wind of one of my nefarious schemes, goes to the appropriate judge, and gets a warrant to tap my Internet connection. They then discover that I'm using this encrypted VOIP thing.
What are they gonna do? Arrest me? On what charge? Using a service which is not "subject to the needs of law enforcement"? What's the penalty for that?
Are they going to drop me a note saying, "Hey, we can't understand what you're sending. Stop doing that."? Do they have the ISPs shut off the ports? What if I'm using port 80? Does the ISP drop me as a customer? Will there be some sort of federal "Do not let this guy use the Internet" list that ISPs have to check? What about "public" places, like Internet Cafes?
This is what I don't understand. What is "subject to the needs of law enforcement"? Can the Government decide that I don't need to use a service? If so, how do they block it? Again, if I assemble it myself, how will the government block it unless they stumble across it during an investigation? And if they block it afterwards, don't they think I'll suspect something?
This sounds like the FCC is trying to play both sides of the street. Yes, you can use whatever service you like, unless the cops don't like it. If they don't like it, something may or may not happen to you.
So fuck you and your false dillemma argument. Our only choices are Mad Max and the Soviet Union? Please. Why then do societies take so many forms other than those two. I guess people are more imaginative than you believe them to be. A lot of them resent tyrants, too. Now go collect your government paycheck and start developing a personality.
Thats not generally a flaw in most people, but the prejudices involved do affect they way they do thier job.
However, the real question is, do you know or have known lots of cops *in a professional capacity"? Because let me tell you, the way cops act when they're "on the job" is totally different from what they'll do hanging out at a bar. Especially when they think you're a criminal. Cops tend to trust thier gut feeling about this sort of thing, which is notoriously unreliable, and since oversight of police is pretty much non existant except in major cases, people just let stuff like illegal or unfounded stops or searches go. Insisting on your rights to a cop who stops you, by the way, is a great way to spend a night in jail. I don't think cops are neccesarily bad people, but they are human, and the circumstances of the job lend themselves to that sort of petty powermongering, just like DMV clerks. Which is why we need extensive oversight, more money and support, including therapy, for officers, and systemic work to try to break up the club atmosphere that forms that "blue wall". The military has exactly the same problem, but it doesn't affect citizens as much because the military isn't used as a policing force very often. Of course, if current trends continue, that may change. And can I take an aside to point out how ridiculous that someone calling themselves a conservative is even *thinking* about having the military take a larger roll in civilian affairs?
Those are not liberal social policies. You are confusing causes that people like to term "liberal" (meaning Democrat generally) and "conservative" (meaning Republican generally) with actual definitions on policy stances. A liberal one is the giving of lots of rights, a conservative one is the giving of few. There is, of course, a continium between the two. An extremely liberal social view would be essentially an anarchist view, that there should be no restricitions on behvaiour whatsoever (anarchists are also extremely economically liberal, in that there should be no regulation whatsowever).
Also hate speech laws would be liberal in that they would be different. As I said, I liberal agenda with regard to legal change is one that our laws should change, a conservative one is to keep what we have or step back to what we used to have.
Politics is more complex than a black and white, liberal vs conservative view. There are many things onw can be liberal or conservative on, and many ways in whcih one can be liberal or conservative.
For example to go to just two factors: Social policy and economic policy. Stereotypical Republicans are socially conservative, economically liberal. That means they believe the government should be fairly restrictive of behaviour, but fairly permissive of economic freedom. Stereotypical Democrats are socially liberal, economically conservative. They believe the government should heavily regulate the economy, but people should be allowed to do as they please.
However it's not as cut and dry as that, neither are totally permissive or restrictive in their given area, different people in those groups have a different amount of liberal or conservative tendencies, and those aren't the only two factors.
What you say is exactly true, if for 'criminals', you say 'bad people'. Cops don't want to put normal people away.
However, it's who they think are 'bad people'. Chinamen. Hippies. The Irish. Unionists. Blacks. Mormons. Homosexuals.
I've deliberately listed people that the cops used to go after, instead of modern people. But rest assured they still do the same thing.
Luckily, given enough laws, everyone is breaking the law, and cops can choose to go after 'bad people', secure in the knowledge those people are criminals. This is what is called a 'police state'.
The 'good' people will get ignored, maybe get a warning every so often, and of course the laws will be rigged so the laws they like to break are not that bad (1), or can be twisted into not being that bad by the police, as long as they don't interfere with the ability of the police to come down on 'bad people'.
I'm not saying this POV is actually a bad thing. There are plenty of cops where 'bad people'=='people who hurt other people', and those people make good cops. There also, however, plenty whose idea of 'bad people' is a bit more...iffy.
1) This works really well when there is a cultural gap between 'good people' and 'bad people'. For example, using different kinds of drugs, or in different ways. Or, as Anatole France put it, the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
You are essentially arguing from the fear mongering perspective. Yes, it is true that there are some "bad" people out there. Unfortunately, they are really very rare in comparison to other dangers. Most people do not die from "bad" people killing them, they die from car accidents or from being fat, or just from growing old. People have things stolen from them, but many, many more people just waste their money on stupid things they don't really need, or just gamble it away. Statistically, you're much more likely to kill or hurt yourself than to have someone else do it.
In light of that, shouldn't the government be doing more to, say, increase our intelligence with genetic modification or something? Anything that helps the majority of people live their lives easier reduces crime, because there's less incentive to take hard earned stuff from other people, or to get revenge on them for some stress induced comment or whatever. There's always the ever present risk of the government actually hurting more innocent people than it protects, which is currently kind of on the edge with all the people in jail for smoking pot. The "government", or law enforcement in particular is just another subset of the general population with its own percentage of "bad" people. The less power those bad people have over normal people, the better. Clearly, a balance is needed, and this is why it's never correct to say "Well, anything that can stop crime must be better!" Nuking the earth would stop crime. Life is not about crime, find something else to spend your energy on.
"I'm just curious, how are you defining "Fascism?""
Authoritarian capitalism, police state, no due process, dominated by one party which suffocates all opposition. It maintains a facade of capitalism which differentiates it from Communism and authoritarian socialism. However rather than free markets the government and the party dominates all aspects of economic life that matter, and in particular intervene in economic affairs whenever it benefits and enriches favored party members.
A penchant for militarism and aggressive warfare to gain its objectives. Massive investment in armaments and the willingness to use them to dominate its allies and enemies alike.
Fear mongering to make the population pliant to manipulation and control by the party. It was a classic technique perfected in Nazi Germany. The Nazi's version of 9/11 was the Reichstag fire. Its likely the Nazi's burned it but they framed a naked, mentally ill communist for it, and used it as justification for seizing power in face of an imminent "threat" form the Communists and the Jews.
Fascist states are defined by being rabidly anticommunist, which has defined the U.S. for the last century. In the 1930's many Americans were very supportive of Nazi Germany because both Germany and the U.S. were staunchly anti Soviet. George W.'s grandfather Prescott was the U.S. banker for the Thyssen family, one of Germany's richest which helped bankroll Hitlers rise to power. His Union Banking assets were seized for trading with the enemy when the U.S. declared war. Most of the 3rd world dictators we suppored in the twentieth century were Fascist regimes too, they were people we installed who were willing to kill socialist and communists indiscriminately. This gets back to Negropontes role in building right wing death squads in Central America as the U.S. waged a secret war against Socialism in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
The U.S. is a somewhat benign form of Fascism, it does maintain a pretense of free elections but they are looking less free every iteration. If the Republican's retain their grip on power in 2006 and certainly by 2008 by suckering the electorate, exploiting a crisis(real or fabricated), rigging elections I don't think there will be much doubt this will be a Fascist state for a long time. One can only hope that Americans are becoming sufficiently disgusted with one party rule that they throw the Republicans out of a branch or two. If they don't basic liberties in this country are in real peril. I don't want the Democrats to have power either, since they are barely distinguishable for Republicans these days, a nice grid lock is desirable at present when both options are horrendously bad. The Republicans have engaged in such an effective and savage propaganda campaign against the Dems I'm not sure the Dems will gain control of anything. If the Republicans have a few more years to pack the courts that will finish the process of seizing power.
Nice unverifiable electronic voting will be a great tool for maintaining the pretense of free elections when they are in fact rigged.
The U.S. does still have due process most of the time but Little George has managed to set precedent for completely eviscerating it with Jose Padilla among others. If you don't have due process all the time for all citizens you don't really have it at all. Right now we only have it when its convenient for the White House and until they fabricate a terrorism charge against you which they apparently never have to prove in court.
The U.S. is building an all powerful combined police force, domestic, and foreign spying capacity that would be the envy of the Gestapo or KGB, under John Negroponte, a right wing Machiavellian if ever there was one. Imagine if the Gestapo only had computers and spy satellites.
The U.S. is, through the rendition program, seizing people at will anywhere on the globe, and sending them in to torture chambers around the globe. Sure sounds a lot like the Gestapo to me, except t
@de_machina
What are they gonna do? Arrest me? On what charge? Using a service which is not "subject to the needs of law enforcement"? What's the penalty for that?
Yours is the key question.
I think the following is a valid metaphor:
You are whispering to someone in a public square. The constable sees you whispering and runs over to demand, "What were you just saying?!" Are you compelled, in the US, to answer? The answer: NO! In the general case the answer is no, but what if you really were saying things that would implicate you in a crime? Well, the 5th Ammendment addresses that question rather thoroughly - you aren't required to testify to things which would tend to incriminate you.
Extend the whispering in a public square metaphor to speaking to an acquaintance over public networks using encryption. I'm not willing to fight wire tapping, but I am willing to fight the notion that I can be compelled to turn over my key for my encrypted speech. I've got a 5th ammendment right to keep that key to myself.
The response you should expect to the little problem of the existence of the 5th Ammendment to the Constitution is an attempt to ban all but breakable encryption in the US.