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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."
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.
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?