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A History of Wiretapping
ChelleChelle writes "Wiretapping technology has grown increasingly sophisticated since the police first began to utilize it as a surveillance tool in the 1890s. What once entailed simply putting clips on wires has now evolved into building wiretapping capabilities directly into communications infrastructures (at the government's behest). In a modern society, where surveillance is often touted as a way of ensuring our safety, it is important to take into consideration the risks to our privacy and security that electronic eavesdropping presents. In this article, Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau examine these issues, attempting to answer the important question: does wiretapping actually make us more secure?"
Does warrantless wiretapping help anyone other than the statists who have wanted this power for a long time and now have a working excuse for it?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
"Anyone who would give-up ESSENTIAL liberty for *temporary* security, deserve neither." - Benjamin Franklin. Also while we may be able to trust a President Bush or President Obama with the ability to monitor our internet transactions, eventually there will arise a man like Julius Caesar or Nero or Napoleon who will use the ability of spying for his own enrichment and/or to eliminate enemies. Like Nixon did.
IMHO people who trust government are either fools, or they don't know history,
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
As much as I loathe the fact that the previous administration abused wiretapping, maybe it's a necessary evil? I don't know all of the history of wiretapping, but I imagine that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies used it to capture dangerous criminals in the past and are currently doing it in the present. As long as a warrant is obtained, I don't see why it would be illegal. Of course there will be abuse, but don't throw out a tool simply because it can be abused. Many things in life can be abused. Does that warrant their expulsion from society? Alcohol is abused, but should it be done away with? Probably a stretch of an analogy, but it works. Law enforcement, however, should not be allowed to wiretap without a warrant. Fighting terrorism, whether foreign against foreign or domestic, should not be an excuse for illegal wiretaps.
I do think we made a mistake by making it so easy to wiretap a phone/data line. No matter what kind of central monitoring technology would allow, it should be strictly illegal and completely inadmissable in any court. The police should have to physically install wiretapping equipment on the premises to be monitored or at most, on the physical line between the premises to be monitored and the telephone company. That way, if they have a specific suspect for which a warrant is obtained, they can monitor that suspect, but they cannot go fishing and cannot perform datamining. This would greatly hinder the value of warrantless wiretapping and would help to ensure that if you are a regular citizen who has given the police no reason to suspect you of a crime, then you can be more confident that you are not being monitored because it would be impractical to do so. I greatly prefer that to trusting the goodwill of people who have proven that they will abuse this power.
I think that's how one would correctly handle something that is rightly recognized as a necessary evil.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Wiretapping makes the government more secure, not individuals.