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DoJ Mulls Tracking Picture Uploads
Dominus Suus passed us a link to a C|Net article about a disturbing threat to privacy from the Justice Department. According to the article, a private meeting was held Wednesday between Justice officials and telecom industry representatives. With individuals from companies such as AOL and Comcast looking on, the officials continued overtures to increase data retention by ISPs on American citizens. This week, they were specifically looking to have records kept of photo uploads. In this way, and 'in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate,' an easy trail from A to Z will be available. The article provides a good deal of background on the Bush Administration's history with data retention, with ties to events even older than the Bush presidency. "The Justice Department's request for information about compliance costs echoes a decade-ago debate over wiretapping digital telephones, which led to the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. To reduce opposition by telephone companies, Congress set aside $500 million for reimbursement and the legislation easily cleared both chambers by voice votes. Once Internet providers come up with specific figures, privacy advocates worry, Congress will offer to write a generous check to cover all compliance costs and the process will repeat itself."
No problem man, they've got it covered. See, we'll outsource the service and hosting to India and borrow the money from China.
It's all good.
The Bush administration is the most corrupt administration the U.S. has ever had. Here is my summary of the corruption: George W. Bush comedy and tragedy.
I find it scary how little U.S. citizens know about the activities of their government. Part of the reason is that the Bush administration uses the same method of abuse Microsoft uses. Both exploit the fact that it is difficult for people to defend against many, many abuses, each small in themselves. Both, in my opinion, use sophisticated public relations methods to sell their lies.
I hope you will write your own summary of U.S. government corruption and send it to your elected representatives.
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Is U.S. government violence a good in the world, or does violence just cause more violence?
www.eff.org
The real goal of the whole thing is to some day maybe 5 years down the road be able to track uploads of sound amd video. That way they can bust people who upload viacom videos to youtube or put some movie out there. Of course they use childporn photos to set it up but how long till its tracking video too just in case. Sure it's not technically feasible now but it will be...
The article says it would be up to the web sites to store backups of the images with relevant date/time/source IP data, but what if you host pictures on your own ADSL or whatever connection, would you still be liable to store copies with the relevant source information?
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
YouTube is for people who have a camera but lack talent. And where exactly does that leave slashdot? A place for people with a keyboard but no original thoughts?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
My thoughts exactly:P
And just who is going to pay for the ungodly amount of storage this would require?
Why us of course.
And the next step is keeping track of what pictures you download. At that point it will be easier for each ISP to just cache the entire internet. Then finally the term "the internets" will be accurate.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
I know, 4 days old, but still rather relevant,from eff.org (http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_02.php#0051 40):
"Washington, D.C. - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the Department of Justice today, demanding records about secret new court orders that supposedly authorize the government's highly controversial electronic surveillance program that intercepts and analyzes millions of Americans' communications.
When press reports forced the White House to acknowledge the program in December of 2005, the administration claimed that the massive program could be conducted without warrants or judicial authorization of any kind. However, in January of this year, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had authorized collection of some communications and that the surveillance program would now operate under its approval. EFF's suit comes after the Department of Justice failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records concerning the purported changes in the program (...)"
Seriously.. I echo the former post; join the EFF. Changes are ONLY going to take place through efficient lobbying (but then it also works really well, Halliburton has proved that beyond doubt..)
I think this has already happened. I live in south-east Washington state, 60 miles south of the NSA's cowboy echelon site. About 6 years ago, a huge fiber install project seemed to cover every dirt road in the county. Population density here is 0-20 residents / square mile in rural areas. None of this build-up resulted in any change in the available phone service ( POTS only ). All the fiber lines seem to originate from the Fed's BPA fat pipe ( the same one The Dalles Google is attached to ) and run up these dirt roads. They seem to aggrigate at Goldendale Wa. and branch to Yakima down highway 97, Although some seem to head up into the unpopulated mountains. Urban dwellers are used to fiber on every street, but orange poles on every dirt road cutting through wheat fields seems strange. I probably should shut up now.
A few thousands, or even tens of thousands, of motivated criminals (outside of the ones who "own" the country, of course) are of no real threat to the established order - they will almost always prey on the populace.
A few million, or tens of millions, of motivated citizens are absolutely a threat to rule by the few - which is why anything that allows the populace to realize their predicament and then organize to change it must absolutely be stopped.
There's free as in speech, free as in beer, and free as in range. Americans are free in the latter sense.
You are going to pay for it
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
I know, our elected representatives are citizens too, and you would think that they wouldn't want to live under the bad law they make. I've come to accept that the profiteering that goes on in Congress is rewarding enough that it's worth moving the country in the wrong direction by leaps and bounds, and they must figure that, as powerful as they are, they aren't really subject to those laws anyway. For the most part they're right. Occasionally one of them gets sacrificed to make the plebs think that Washington is policing itself, but that has little apparent effect on the rest of them, fine-sounding speeches aside.
... and then they get within range of the D.C. distortion field. I believe that it's a lot like picking up a girl in a bar and going home with her. It all seems to make perfect sense at the time, but the next morning you wake up and go "Oh my God ... what have I done?"
People like to make jokes about Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field". I'd like to point out that a much more powerful version of the same effect permeates Washington D.C.. I was born there, as it happens, and even as a small child I could feel it, a little. I wasn't sure what it was, but something was definitely out-of-kilter even way back then. When we returned home (to another state) I felt an overwhelming sense of normalcy so I know our leaders are driving the country while under the influence of something.
So, our elected officials go to Washington with the best of intentions, perhaps with a sincere desire to make the nation a better place
But by the time you wake up, it is way too late.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Its all about terrorism, child porn, and piracy I am sick to death of them beating this dead horse. Why dont they just get right down to it and ...
1)put cameras in our homes. (They'll just check them when there is a suspicion of a crime)
2)ban all sex out side marriage
3)ban all non secular music.
4)ban all non missionary position sex
5)ban all violence on TV
6)ban all gay people
7)ban the GPL
Use installed camera to enforce all banned.
8)tag us and record where we go with gps ( they'll only check it if there is suspicion of a crime)
10)mandate car manufacturers to install tracking devices. (they'll only check it if . . . )
11)build a berlin wall around USA (to keep out terrists and drugs, and illegals and..) keep us in?
12)ban all weapons but handguns which are useless when the people wake up from Shitney Shears and Anna Dickhole Sith and try to rise up and take back their country.
I wonder who really fooled us Americans that we have the right to any semblance of privacy any way.
As far as the DOJ and law enforcement goes who needs to investigate anything anymore All we the righteous people of law-enforcement need is a great big control panel that we can monitor everyone and when we suspect them of a crime we just push a button and voila they are in prison. Who the hell needs due process anymore
Welcome people to the United States Socialist Republic. The USSR.
Its the government.. WE get to pay.. its called taxes, remember?
Cost is no object when its not your money.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
One peculiarity of US law is its way of breaking down different forms of communications, a system that is based on archaic technologies.
IANAL, but this is pretty much my understanding of the situation.
Privacy of electronic communications is protected mainly by the Electronic Communication Act of 1986, which consists of three parts:
Title 1, Wiretap Act: protections communicaiton that have some kind of audio component (paradigm: phone calls)
Title 2, Stored Communications Act: protects electronic communiations while they are in transit or in temporary storage (paradigm: email held in spools, e.g. the old arpanet mail which often sent email through UUCP over 300 baud phone links to reach computers that weren't directly connected)
Title 3, Pen Register Act: prevents placing devices on phone lines to record phone numbers.
Each title of ECPA was written with electronic communication technology as it stood ca 1985, which means that by 1990 it was clearly obsolete. But there is no such thing as an obsolete law, or at least obsolete laws continue to operate in unexpted ways. In this case, the provisions of ECPA have been extended by process of analogy to many situations that weren't even considered in 1985. Many curious questions arise. For example, it would appear that the government cannot rifle through email spool directories without a warrant. But what about when it is delivered to your in box? Many people use their in boxes as filing systems. It would be one thing if it was stored on your computer, but what if it is stored at an ISP?
Or this: the government can't put a pen register on your phone lines -- basically a mechanical device that records the electrical singals on your phone line and makes a paper tape of the numbers you call. Constitutionally they are not prevented from doing so because you are disclosing the phone numbers to a third party -- the phone company. So what about email logs? They are covered by the same constitutional doctrine, but don't appear to be covered by ECPA, which envisions installing a device to reocord transient signals.
Or this: what if there were an image format that included audio commentary? Would this trigger the Wiretap act? Is this why the AG is talking about picture uploads and not movie uploads? Note once again the capriciousness of US law.
As a non-lawyer, I don't really follow all the ins and outs of the developments in information privacy law, because it's not really worth my time. There's no way a nonspecialist can keep track of the twists and turns of case law. The bottom line is this: unlike the EU, we do not have a fundamental, legally protected right to information and communication privacy in the US. The strategy of US lawmakers has been to avoid the recognition of any new rights, but to curb specific abuses when they reach the outrage level.
The result is the capriciousness we have seen. A non-lawyer can't really know what is rights are vis a vis the government, because it depends on a rather haphazard patchwork of statues, viewed through the series of lenses that are judicial analogizing.
The courts have to operate this way, because people who feel outraged by violations of what common sense tells them is a right of privacy keep bringing lawsuits trying to employ a broken down system of statues that implicitly assume those rights, but don't explicitly secure them.
We have reached the point in the US where an ordinary person really can't know what his rights are. Special interests, and officials of a statist bent, have found so many ways to violate the spirit of individual and community liberty embodied in the Constitution, while avoiding technical illegalities. Constitutional law has been stretched to its limits to cover rights clearly implied by the Constitution (e.g. substantive due process), but this process leaves protection of individual and group rights thin and patchy.
I believe is time for a new declaration of human rights in the US along the lines of
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Unfortunately the Supreme Court isn't going to help us.
We live in an authoritarian capito-fascistic state. You can choose to ignore it, you can tell yourself that it doesn't affect you personally (yet); but that won't change the fact. We have government that reinterprets laws and standards to mean what they decide they need to mean to fit their agenda at the mmoment (which usually, in all moments, is CONTROL), it's a system of institutionalized corruption.
Electing someone from the either large party isn't going to help us - I mean, there are a few exceptions in both major parties, but none of the big names really.
I think that the people are going to have to find a way to organize and save our constitution. The system will not save itself because it is compromised. It could be hacked or manipulated and forced to work for us should large groups of people be willing to stand up for their rights - but unfortunately that's not going to happen by voting or by any of the rigged or tilted mechanisms in place.
What people who say things like "I don't mind, I'm not doing anything illegal" fail to realize is that it doesn't matter - because once the entire system of surviellance and control is in place, once you have no privacy or anonimity it is too late - because then the definition of what is legal and what is illegal can be changed.
It's not like they ever give your rights or your expectations of personal liberty back once they have been taken away - even when these things are promised (like sunset provisions) at the time such legislation is proposed.
Aside from that, what if you were at one time in drug rehab - or are a member of a group like AA and all of these records are stored forever and then down the line the whole world can find out all of your private personal stuff.
The slippery slope is no more - we're almost in freefall.
This is ridiculous and doesn't make any sense. "Girl", "bar" and "morning" are not even words. I believe you wanted to say:
So, our elected officials go to Washington with the best of intentions, perhaps with a sincere desire to make the nation a better place ... and then they get within range of the D.C. distortion field. I believe that it's a lot like downloading a keygen from the internet and running it under your admin account on your main machine. It all seems to make perfect sense at the time, but after the next reboot you wake up and go "Oh my God ... what have I done?"
When you get down to it, if I have to name the nation's most Corrupt Administration off the top of my head, I'd say Andrew Jackson. Good old "To the victor belong the spoils" Jackson. Good old "Trail of tears" Jackson. Mr. "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" Jackson. Good old "man-of-the-people" Jackson. Good old man-of-the-people Bush is at least trying to work something positive in Iraq (though one can easily question its effectiveness) - what was Jackson doing with the Indian Removal business? That's far more criminal than the Iraq war ever was or will be. And if you wanted me to name the President that did the most to restrict civil liberties during his term in office, that's easy. Abraham Lincoln, yo. Writ of habeus what now? That's right. And the Great Emancipator walked all over freedom of speech and such, too.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Yeah, no original thoughts! Where does that leave slashdot?
We are all just people.