Obama Wants Broader Internet Wiretap Authority

An anonymous reader writes "The White House plans to deliver a bill to Congress next year that will require Internet-based communication services that use encryption to be capable of decrypting messages to comply with federal wiretap orders. The bill will go beyond CALEA to apply to services such as Blackberry email. Even though RIM has stated that it does not currently have an ability to decrypt messages via a master key or back door, the bill may require them to. Regarding this development, James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology commented on the proposal, saying, 'They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.'"

Comments

It was only a matter of time.

[elucido]

Now they want to direct all the spy agencies on the new "terrorist" the American citizen. They want to bug our houses, tap our phones, point satellites and drones at us, have informants stalk us, and feed the information back to the local police so that if we break even the slightest most esoteric arcane law we get raided, arrested etc.

Replace "Obama" with "Bush" and it's "Bush Wants Broader Internet Wiretap Authority." and the reason is to help law enforcement? Privacy and civil liberties should be given up to help the police put us in jail easier? They have to do a better job justifying the unlimited surveillance powers they claim to need. There aren't that many terrorists, unless they plan on going back to the 60s and raiding all the anti war movement hippy types and Alex Jones listeners who happen to know what encryption is.

There is an FBI already. There is an NSA already. If it's a national security concern the NSA already can crack the encryption so why do we have to make it so easy that any 2 bit local cop can do it? If it's about national security I'm sure they already can crack most of it if not all of it. If it's about law enforcement then it's not worth the sacrifice. There aren't enough criminals to justify it and most criminals aren't using encryption.

The only way they can justify this that I can see is with the "It's more efficient, it saves money", unfortunately even if it does save money it doesn't offer anything to the citizen. It doesn't make us feel safer and probably doesn't actually make us safer either. For a lot of us it will make us feel less safe because whenever a person feels under the microscope they usually feel less safe.

Re:It was only a matter of time.

[elrous0]

The really scary thing is just how broad the reach of the NSA really is. I read James Bamford's The Shadow Factory a while back and was shocked at how little I appreciated what they could (and routinely do) really do. Basically, if you make a phone call to any of the targeted regions (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc.), the NSA is recording it--whether it's by cell, landline, or satellite (they have agreements with all the major satellite communications companies). Doesn't matter if you're a terrorist or not, they're monitoring you and archiving all your calls, period (they've even been transcribing the calls of U.S. journalists to their families, prompting at least one operative to quit the agency).

I was particularly surprised to learn that they routinely monitor the calls of the major UN officials and all the other security council members (they've bugged the shit out of the UN building and associated offices too). During the buildup to the Iraq War, when Collin Powell was getting ready to "make his case" for the war, they were carefully monitoring the calls and emails of all the permanent and non-permanent security council members, including the Secretary-General of the UN himself. They even sent out a memo to the intelligence services of several of our closest allies (the UK and associated countries) asking them to help us out on the spying (though we were even spying on them too). Pretty creepy stuff, especially for anyone who still foolishly doubts that the Iraq War was anything but a foregone conclusion for the Bush administration.

Re:Bad timing.

[Pojut]

It's them just trying to get Republican votes...just like Democrat politicians are all about equality except for themselves, who require bigger and better things, Republican politicians advocate smaller government...except when it comes to invading your personal life.

Re:Bad timing.

[FriendlyLurker]

Obama is now arguing they need the ability to assassinate Americans, but keep details of why and who a complete "state secret" and free from any oversight. If that is not the Orwellian future right now, then I don't know what is... Broader internet wiretaps pale in comparison to this. For those that think this might just be for those Americans congress labels as a "terrorist" - then this politically expedient death might give you pause

.

Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[mcgrew]

I'm an American, and I value my freedom over a false sense of security. If you aren't comfortable with that, perhaps America isn't for you.

Odd how Obama seems to be becoming Bush, isn't it?

Illinois has a Governor's race coming up, I'm voting for Whitney. Green Party; Whitney recently suggested legalizing marijuana in Illinois as a way to reduce spending and raise state revenues. The Democrat and Republican are both agast at this stance.

Sorry, Governor Quinn, I can't support a candidate who is for the continued outlawing of a beneficial plant. California's Governator is right -- there's no difference between most Republicans and Democrats, even though their respective wingnuts are different.

Re:Bad timing.

[dargaud]

Wasn't the previous slashdot post about "Man gets 10 years for VOIP hacking" ? But when the gov does it it's all dandy and fine and necessary and indeed obligatory ?!?

Re:So

[slapout]

Are you sure? Seems like a continuation of the old.

Re:Bad timing.

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

What exactly is he saying that is bullshit? And how have you determined it to be bullshit?

Do you claim that Obama doesn't want the authority to assassinate any US citizen with no court oversight and is hiding it behind "state secrets"?

Re:CHANGE!!

[sarysa]

Wow, good observation with the SSH.

Show of hands here, who could write a communication program in an hour that would defeat all attempts at decryption if the two "terrorists" exchanged the program in person? I know I could! Maybe someone who can needs to testify to Congress as a software/communications expert and knock some sense into them.

This increases my respect ...

[Bob-taro]

... for the slashdot community. As a part of the conservative slashdotter minority, I came to this thread fully expecting to see most people coming out in Obama's defense on this, or trying to excuse it somehow, but I saw nothing of the kind. Rather than pile on, I'll just say that I admire people who consistently back principles rather than personalities.

Re:There's a Difference?

[norminator]

The problem is the discrepancy between what the Tea Party claims as its official beliefs (small government, less taxes) and what the Tea Party actually believes (Obama is a Socialist Marxist fascist dictator who worships Hitler and Allah and wants to take all the rich people's money away and give it to all the poor people and sell us all out to the world government).

I am in agreement with the stated goals of the Tea Party, but any group that has Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as its unofficial spokespeople is not a group I would ever want to associate with. It makes it hard to know if I can take a story like the one reported in TFA seriously, since I heard Glenn Beck talking about it this morning on the radio. Given his reporting on other things (for example, the Fannie Mae outlet patent... Google that if you don't know what I'm talking about), it's obvious you can't trust anything he says. But if he reports on something that is genuinely scary, I'm now instantly predisposed to downplay its significance.

His fans will unquestioningly listen to everything he says, and his enemies will unquestioningly disagree with anything he says, which means that all of his lies and half-truths will be wrongly accepted by too many people, while the few things he gets right will be ignored by too many.

Can we have a Tea Party that isn't based on outrage and anger? A moderate Tea Party? People who don't like government spending, but who would also attend Jon Stewart's "Restoring Sanity" rally?

Re:As if there were any doubt, HOPE is dead

[NeutronCowboy]

Horseshit. What I wanted was someone who sounded like he actually thought about something before acting. He also had the advantage that he wasn't Campaign-McCain or Palin. The fact that he was turned into a rockstar had more to do with how abjectly bad Bush had been for an entire 8 years. After him, LISA and a poo-flinging ape would have gotten a rock-star billing.

Re:Hahah

[Abcd1234]

The "whackjob" personas are figments of the same frat boy mentality that dominates politics, the media, and most of the rest of society.

No, they're not. Both Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich hold beliefs that are *far* out of step with average American politics. The former is the craziest kind of libertarian whacko, and the latter is practically a communist when compared with his contemporaries in the US (and I'm Canadian, I know my communists). Are they both intelligent, interesting people with good ideas? Absolutely. But relative to their compatriots in American politics, they're fucking nuts.

We could use more principled whackjobs in politics.

No, you just need people with principles. You don't have to be on the extremes of the political spectrum to object to the dangerous precedents set by this and the previous administration.

Unfortunately, like business, politics rewards the power-seeking sociopath.

Re:CHANGE!!

[dkleinsc]

either he doesn't know what he's saying (very possible), or he's lost his mind.

Option number 3, put forward by Jesse Ventura of all people: Obama's not calling the shots when it comes to issues around the three-letter agencies.

Re:CHANGE!!

[LynnwoodRooster]

Sadly, the "Troll" is right. I voted for Obama, and either he doesn't know what he's saying (very possible), or he's lost his mind.

Or perhaps he knows EXACTLY what he wants - a totalitarian State where you work for the State, the State pays you, and the State gets to know everything it wants about anything without repercussion.

Think about it: we've lost 2.5 million private employment jobs, but added 500,000 Government jobs. Two of the largest companies in the nation are majority owned by the Government. Many of the largest financial institutions are owned by the Government. Not a single privacy or legal issue that so many attacked the Bush Administration on (renditions, Gitmo) has been overturned or reversed. Obama wants the right to decide an assassination list in secret, even if it contains US citizens who were not tried in court. And now wants unfettered access to anything and everything you communicate.

No, there is a third option: he lied through his teeth to get elected and is now carrying out his dream of a totalitarian State with Obama and friends at the top of the pyramid.