Slashdot Mirror
FBI Planning New Net-Tapping Push
Section_Ei8ht writes to tell us CNet is reporting that the FBI is pushing for legislation to allow law enforcement officials free access to networking gear via built in backdoors for eavesdropping. From the article: "Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute and member of a Homeland Security advisory board, said the proposal would 'have a negative impact on Internet users' privacy. People expect their information to be private unless the government meets certain legal standards,' Harper said. 'Right now the Department of Justice is pushing the wrong way on all this.'"
Back in 2004 some of the highest-ranking politicians and other most influential people in Greece had their cell phone conversations surreptitiously recorded by an unknown organization for a period of months.
The job could not have been pulled off without the presence of automated wire-tapping functionality built into the Ericsson switches in Greece. What makes the "greek experience" relevant here is that Greece didn't even purchase the wire-tapping "option" to their switches, it would have cost millions more and they decided to save the money and thought that by not purchasing the extra software and hardware they didn't even have to worry about the issue. They were very wrong.
If ever there was proof that wire-tapping features built into systems for law-enforcement use can and will be exploited by unauthorized users, this is it. It really does not get more clean-cut than this - except for the speculation as to who exactly these unauthorized wire-tappers were - the leading candidate is the CIA. Which would lead even just a mildly paranoid person to wonder if perhaps the FBI is jealous of the CIA's latitude in foreign operations and they just want the same, easily-abused by themselves, features within their own jurisdiction.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Fascism did not start in Germany. Fascism started in Hungary and Italy. It didn't really care much about Jews until Hitler came into power. Furthermore, terrorism has only killed maybe ten thousand people. Fascist and authoritarian governments have killed over ten million.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I'm going to repeat it again--much like the Republicans, maybe if I repeat it enough it will get through to you: We had all the information necessary to stop the 9/11 Attacks.
Unfortunately, some of the information was at the CIA. Some of the information was at the FBI. Some of the information was at the NSA. None of the groups shared their information. In some cases, they couldn't because it was illegal--the CIA is forbidden from "domestic spying", while the FBI is forbidden from "foreign spying." Some of it is turf--why give the FBI information so they can make the arrest and get all the credit? So while the CIA thought these guys were bad news, they didn't tell the FBI. The FBI thought these guys were bad news but they didn't have enough evidence to convince the higher-ups to devote the resources to watching them. The NSA had the evidence that these guys were bad news, but telling the FBI or CIA would have meant divulging national security capabilities.
But I will repeat this again, so it will hopefully get through: We had all the information necessary to stop the 9/11 Attacks.
That's why I get incensed when people bring up 9/11 in this context. 9/11 was not an issue where we didn't have enough information. 9/11 was an organizational problem. There was no reasonable way to make sure that information about dangerous people would get to the appropriate people where they could be watched and/or arrested. So the argument that we need "more information" to "prevent another 9/11" is wrong. What we need to do is do a better job of managing the information we have.
You see, this is why we had an investigation into 9/11--much to the President's chagrin--so we could find out what went wrong and try to fix the problem so it wouldn't happen again.