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FCC Giving Veto Power to FBI Over VoIP?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the big-brother-is-listening dept.

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."

1 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. But what if you don't obey? by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.