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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
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.
"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
Wiretapping makes the government more secure, not individuals.
I always find it amazing when Mafiosas are caught saying provocative stuff on the phone. They had to have known they were being wiretapped. If you know you're going to do something illegal, you don't do it any way that can be traced. No emails, no cell phones, nothing. Just voices in ears. Take the UNABOMBER. He wrote on a manual typewriter, made his bombs out of wood he himself took out of the forest. Every metal component in his bombs was made from scratch, not derived from some other source. So, every single one of those things were utterly untraceable. (He was only caught because his own brother recognized his writing style.)
Well that happens when Congress fails to read the bills placed in front of them. I found it amusing that representatives later said, "I didn't know that law was in the Patriot Act!" Well you would have known if you had bothered to read it.
I expect to hear similar representative cries of "I didn't know that was in the Stimulus Bill" in a few more months. If I was in Congress I would automatically vote "nay" on any bill I have not read at least once.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
From TFA: "Wiretapping was the perfect tool for investigating crimes such as these that lack victims who complain and give evidence to the police"
Yet another reason to rethink our war on drugs policy.
(and no, I don't want pot to be legal so I can use it, I just want them to stop wasting so much money on a faulty premise, as seen in prohibition)
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Only at Slashdot would parent be marked "insightful".
You do realize, of course, that there are a wide variety of situations wherein a LEO is allowed by the law to enter a home without a warrant, I assume.
Probable cause, for one. If the police follow a person fleeing a crime into a residence - or virtually anywhere else, for that matter - they're acting well within their rights and duties and no warrant is needed.
An Arrest Warrant - No search warrant is needed if officers have an arrest warrant and the reasonable belief that the fugitive is inside. Even if they find evidence for crimes unrelated to the search warrant, the evidence is still admissible. See e.g. Gaskins v. U.S., 218 F.2d 47
Consent is another. If the homeowner has provided their consent, then the Police are well within their rights and duties.
The Open Fields Doctrine is another. If objects are left in plain view in an area not traditionally secured as private, the police are well within their rights to search these areas. See Oliver v. U.S.
And the list goes on. And on. And on. Contrary to what you saw on TV or what your high school civics teacher improperly told you, a search warrant isn't always necessary. In fact, interfering with the police in the above situations can easily get you arrested, but you'll at least give the judge a good laugh as he hears you argue the 4th Amendment as a defense.
And what if the search or wiretap is illegal? If you're truly a criminal, if you've truly done the things you are accused of doing, then you may have just hit the jackpot. Under the exclusionary rule (subject to its exceptions, of course), the evidence is tainted, the "fruit of a poisonous tree," and likely inadmissible as evidence against the target of the search in any case.
IANAL - just a 3L (and I haven't taken Crim Pro yet, so don't be cruel, but if you have an actual understanding of the law, please correct me where I am wrong). But of course we have internet lawyers here like parent who just love to make these ridiculous arguments.
Look, I'm not fond of cops. I can't think of anyone who has ever been to law school actually worked with attorneys and seen what the police often do could be fond of them. But following suggestions like parent's is foolishness indeed. Want to support your local public defenders in making illegal search arguments? Please do. chip in some cash, they could use the money. But don't run about harassing the police as parent suggests.
The corporations have won. The politicians are all in their pockets, and neighborhood watches and police informants are tricked into Gang Stalking any potential opposition at the street level, with the help of this 'program' Russ Tice refers to. It's an invisible holocaust which you won't believe in until you get sucked into it.
Jesus dude, put the tinfoil hat away. At no point during my training for neighborhood watch were we instructed to take the political leanings of anybody into account.
I have personal experience with what's really going on, but I can't talk about it, especially on this site full of technically sophisticated users
I call bullshit. If you really wanted to talk about it and weren't just engaged in tinfoil hat ranting you could easily post anything you wanted as AC via an anonymous (tor/cybercafe/etc) means.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The neighborhood watch meetings don't operate that way. What will happen is someone trusted, an authority figure like a policeman or a fireman, maybe several such people, will show up and say something like: "This person is dangerous, we haven't caught him yet, we don't have the manpower to track him, so we want you to follow him everywhere. Let him know he's being followed." That last sentence falls under the category of conspicuous surveillance which is a deliberately engineered intimidation tactic.
The authority figure(s) may present convincing evidence, which is often fabricated or exaggerated. In addition, what the neighborhood watch members don't know is that the target is being covertly harassed by police informants, in an attempt to get him to act out, or to confirm what the police are saying. For example, if the police accuse the target of being a sex offender who hasn't gotten caught yet, female police informants will show up everywhere in the target's path dressed wildly inappropriately to get the target to look. The neighborhood watch member observing this will conclude there's something to the accusations.
It takes a lot of effort to build up the momentum for Gang Stalking of a single individual, a lot of setups like the one I just described. But it's possible because practically everyone involved (neighborhood watch members, police informants) have been tricked or manipulated into working for free. The neighborhood watch members are volunteers. The police informants have to do whatever their case officers tell them to, for free, or go to prison.
There's much more to the ground forces than this, but it's way off-topic for this story, so I'll save it for later.
As for the high tech component of the persecution and torture campaign, it's interesting that you mention tinfoil hats. That is the kind of comment I was warned about before deciding to post here. Just FYI, I'm quite sophisticated enough to know that tinfoil hats do very little to protect against the kinds of things targeted individuals are concerned about. People who have been targeted in the US are a cross-section of America, and unfortunately the majority of Americans are scientifically illiterate. However, don't make the mistake of placing me in that category.
This program is going to come out much sooner than Russ Tice would like, and it's going to be big, but it's probably not going to happen as a result of what I post today. There are people working behind the scenes to expose this; unfortunately you're not going to find accurate information about what's being done on the web. A lot of people who speak up about this are, as I've said, scientifically uninformed, and thus they post nonsense. I'm doing my part by trying to reduce the amount of nonsense out there.
I'm not concerned about posting anonymously. I've already been targeted. What are they going to do... double-target me? My concern is about stepping into the public eye before the time is right.
I'm not getting this from the media. I'm getting it from real life - my life.
This stuff is happening here in America, and it has historical precedent in East Germany's Stasi, who used police informants and citizen's watch groups for Gang Stalking, as well as covert microwaves for torturing and killing targets. In addition, similar tactics were used and exposed in America decades ago - read up on COINTELPRO. Wikipedia has an executive summary in its COINTELPRO page in the "methods" section.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to pull this stuff off. The tactics come from a big book that most targeted individuals that I've communicated with are highly familiar with. Many policemen are also being manipulated, unwittingly, in this program. Again, read up on COINTELPRO, the tactic I mentioned in passing is only one of many the FBI used in that decades old program, and they've gotten more advanced in their tactics since then.
But this is off-topic for this article, anyway, since the topic is warrantless wiretapping, not Stasi-like Gang Stalking. However, there is a new high tech component to the Gang Stalking that didn't exist in East Germany, it's the stuff I was saying above that Slashdotters wouldn't be able to comprehend. It's something I can't talk about yet in the presence of non-targeted individuals (*especially* young techies who think they know everything), but it's going to come out a lot sooner than these guys think.
Imagine for a moment that you are a senator or congressman in opposition to the party in power. Imagine also that you have a girlfriend / boyfriend "on the side".
Now, imagine you are at home asleep at 3am and the phone rings and you pick it up and a recording plays of a conversation you had with your significant secret other.
The message would be clear, wouldn't it? Back off or be outed.
If you don't believe that such things are possible, you are naive. If it's possible, it's happening.
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