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Sorry, Wrong Wiretap
Rick Zeman writes "CNN is covering a little-mentioned Inspector General's report which mentions that the FBI 'sometimes gets the wrong number when it intercepts conversations in terrorism investigations' due to various reasons, and that 'The FBI could not say Friday whether people are notified that their conversations were mistakenly intercepted or whether wrongly tapped telephone numbers were deleted from bureau records.'"
I wonder if anything picked up on a unintentional wiretap is still admissable in court - could provide for a nasty loop hole...
Last time I checked they had these magical things called wiretaps before 2001.
Right. The problem really is that there USED to be judicial oversight. No more. Supporters of PATRIOT claim it's never been abused, thus it's not a problem.
In other news:
Police sometimes arrest the wrong people who haven't committed any crime.
Juries someimte convict the wrong person.
The FBI isn't perfect.
This is not exactly earth-shattering news here, unless you believe the government is some evil,perfect conspiracy out to get you. There's very little news value in this story.
Scuttlemonkey, why'd you have to make that dig about saying oops makes it ok? Nobody would say that, so why'd you have to flamebait like a troll? The editors just get worse and worse.
Show me a man that has never broken the law and I'll show you a man that has never driven a car.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The people enforcing the laws NEED to be held to a higher standard, because they have more power than a common citizen.
With power comes responsibility. If the FBI could get away with wiretapping the wrong person, how long before they wiretap anyone?
The question shouldn't be why not allow the police to do something, but should they be allowed to do something with the approiate oversight?
Just because I don't have anything to hide doesn't mean I shouldn't hide my life, using encryption and such.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
The Cambodians had an evil machine run by groups of people that killed millions. So did Stalin, In the last 100 years think of all the evil that "groups" of people have carried out.
Governments dont have to be efficient, in fact the incompetence is what is scary. Innocent people will get screwed and the guilty will go free. The commies failed because even though they killed a lot of people, it was not necessarily the people they wanted to get. That's what the lack of oversight brings. The reason oversight is frowned upon is so that mistakes can be covered up.
If you are innocent, beware of inefficient groups of people.
Sadly there are those who dont care if there are innocent people getting screwed, as long as it's not them and they feel safe.
It's cheaper to "sacrifice" some innocents than to find out if their punishment is deserved.
Why do you think people support the idea of not finding out whether a non citizen is guilty before locking them up for life in Gitmo?
I'm keeping my tinfoil hat on. Tight.
Yes, in fact, I do.
Remember that we're all presumed innocent. To take an example of encryption, just because I'm using encryption does not mean that I am plotting nefarious schemes against my fellow citizens. I may be discussing confidential business things, for example. Y'know, dare I say it, I might actually work from home in an effort to not drive my car around and burn gas, hurt the environment, etc., etc.
These sorts of mistakes can be dangerous. Imagine the above example--I'm some bigshot business-guy. I own a publicly traded company. The FBI inadvertently taps my phone and learns that someone at the company I work for has just invented something that will make the company a ton of money. Do you really think those agents aren't going to call up their stock-brokers and say, "BUY! BUY! BUY!" (Or, assume the other direction, if you prefer)
Frankly, yes. I want to make it difficult for the government to wiretap it's citizens. I want somebody to look at the evidence that has been accumulated and act as my representative to say, "Hey, wait. Just because he encrypts his phone calls doesn't mean he's a terrorist." I want somebody to second-guess these guys.
The story of the gutsy cop who goes against procedure to nab the bad guys before they enact their evil deeds is a great movie. But it's not real life--remember, in most cases we get the see the bad guys planning their acts in the movies so we know who the bad guy is. Reality is not that cut-and-dried.
In short, I'm more worried about the government abusing it's power than of the terrorists blowing up a building. That happens alot more often.
Police routinely face armed residents when they break into homes, or apprehend in cars. That's why police are well trained, highly armed, come in force of numbers. Many police are shot, often fatally. Yet the residents rarely avoid capture, and usually are shot, and killed, themselves, in the shootout.
Those facts are among the stark facts that make the "we need private guns so we can inhibit the police state" line of propaganda so clearly invalid. The police and army, armed forces of the state, are going to destroy any armed resistance. Widespread armament just escalates the conflict, when it occurs, to ensure people are killed, the state's forces dehumanize the people they're attacking. And that the people kill each other, while they're waiting to defend from the police "takeover". In reality, we have decades of experience in countries around the world showing that nonviolent resistance is a much more effective way to oppose state rule by force. Neither strategy works very well, but "armed resistance" doesn't work at all, and "nonviolent resistance" works more often than not, while preserving the people's life, dignity and organization until a confrontation that the people can win.
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make install -not war