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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.'"
Just a few days ago they raid the anti war movement and now right before the election they want to discuss this? This is a politically stupid time to talk about broader wiretap authority!
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.
No one should be promising their customers that they will thumb their nose at a U.S. court order," Ms. Caproni said. "They can promise strong encryption. They just need to figure out how they can provide us plain text.
What hey're trying to legalize is rather heinous on the part of our government. Just because it's been made legal doesn't mean it's right or good. Seriously, between the ability to declare even American citizens terrorists because of what they've said (not necessarily what they've done), the ability to try anyone classified as a terrorist outside a civilian court, and now the "needed" capability to decrypt encrypted messages over the internet...what's to stop whoever is in the White House from 'disappearing' outspoken people they disagree with, without breaking the law?
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.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
The terrorists will develop their own encryption schemes so using wiretaps would be completely worthless anyway. The mafia is smart enough to outsmart this, street gangs are smart enough, terrorists are smart enough. This is to watch the civilian population like you and me.
Gee, where have we heard these arguments before?
Palm trees and 8
Put another way:
If you outlaw guns.... I mean secure keyless encryption, then only the criminals will have encrypted messages. (And the rest of us will be defenseless sheep.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
Given recent trends, I'd say the opposite - since you value your freedom over a false sense of security, perhaps America isn't for you.
weinersmith
It is the natural tendency of political power to expand and consolidate over time. History has confirmed this over and over again. Like a mega-corporation hungry for more control over the market, government will keep pushing to expand their revenue and power over the people, like clockwork, year after year.
There's a reason why the elite at the top of the pyramid are swimming in wealth, and it's not because they're satisfied with the amount of control they have over the populace. Government is a business, and like any business, their primary objective is profit. The difference, of course, is that government holds the special right to generate market share through coercion, rather than persuasion.
Hope. Was not that the so called banner from 'Democrats' during their endless waa waa about Bush. Not much needs to be said. Gitmo? Ha. Iraq? Ha. Afganistan, Ha.
Obama is gone after 4 years, and will be hated by both sides.
We`re all equal
When (if?) conservatives say "the government should not have that power", what they mean is "the liberals currently in government should not have that power, but it is okay for our side".
When (if?) liberals say "the government should not have that power", what they mean is "the conservatives currently in government should not have that power, but it is okay for our side".
Both conveniently forget the problem of not whether YOU will not abuse the power when asking for it, but once granted whether or not those elected AFTER you are gone will abuse the power. For those playing at home, the answer is invariably "YES".
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The list can go on. Thinking that the Democrats are for personal freedom is outdated thinking. Both major parties are led by totalitarian control freaks.
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.
Free Martian Whores!
I want to be very clear on this statement, on behalf of GNU Telephony. It is not simply that we will choose to openly and publicly defy the imposition of such an illegitimate law, but we will explicitly continue to publicly develop and distribute free software (that is software that offers the freedom to use, inspect, and modify) enabling secure peer-to-peer communication privacy through encryption directly to the public worldwide as it is needed especially in nations, such as the United States, where basic human freedoms seem most threatened.
To fully understand the nature of such surveillance and societies, imagine being among several hundred million people who each wake up each day having to prove they are not a "terrorist" by whatever arbitrary means the government has decided to both define the terms of such a crime and whatever arbitrary means they might choose to define you as such. It is a society who's very foundation is built on the idea of everyone being guilty until proven innocent. It is the imposition of an illegitimate society, and one that probably will ultimately require a revolutionary response.
David Alexander Sugar
Chief Facilitator
GNU Telephony
The United Arab Emirates, followed by their huge cousin Saudi Arabia, are shutting down Blackberry until RIM lets them spy on its data in realtime. RIM has been able to argue it doesn't have such a backdoor feature. Obama has the clout to force this Canadian company to create one. And then the Saudis and the rest of their medieval tyranny neighbors will spy on us. They don't need no steenkin' warrants. And neither does Obama, if he personally decides it's a "state secret".
--
make install -not war
>>>I value my freedom over a false sense of security. If you aren't comfortable with that, perhaps America isn't for you.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety [until the next tyrant comes along and uses his power to imprison you] deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Way to take that WAY out-of-context.
Franklin was referring to settlers who refused to use firearms to defend themselves from raids by French-allied native tribes during the French and Indian War (US name)/Seven-Year's War (IIRC the European name).
That quote is nothing more than part of an anti-pacifism rant. Given that Franklin would later be a leader of an armed rebellion, it's not surprising he vehemently disagreed with the philosophy unarmed pacifists.
Besides that, you're misusing the quote anyway. Franklin's "essential liberty" was the keeping and bearing of arms by individuals. The "temporary safety" was the settler's false hope that by being unarmed they wouldn't be attacked. Franklin was not referring to tyrants or governments relationship to their own citizens - he was referring to isolated individuals' self-defense ability/responsibility during a war.
The fact that your two-hundred-fifty-year-old completely out-of-context sound bite get modded +5 is more a reflection of the ignorance of the moderators than anything else.
Actually he *is* a lot like JFK. He's a vastly overrated politician who is ramping up the spying of the CIA/NSA, while being deified by a party that supposedly stands for civil liberties. He's also ambivalent on civil rights issues, sucks up to big corporations, is continuing an unwinnable war, and couldn't give a shit less about the plight of the common citizen. If he were any more like JFK, Marylin Monroe would blow him.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The difference between guns and encryption is that a modern economy can function without guns (at least on the inside), while it can't function without encryption. Banks could not work without secure communication, no trade secrets could be kept, and so on. If you mandate that every form of encryption must have a government back door, then you are making it easy for an underpaid civil servant (or someone who blackmails a civil servant) to cause massive damage to the economy and make a large profit in the process. You also have the problem that it can't possibly work. You can get secure encryption software from a variety of sources, including some textbooks that include code listings.
The end result is that terrorists and other people who actually understand cryptography (at least, in broad terms) will use secure encryption, while the average person using Internet Banking won't.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
How do otherwise intelligent people put themselves into a political fantasy-land?
You avoid it by looking beyond the cheerleading from the mainstream media. Everyone like to bash Fox News (and justifiably so), but refuses to admit that CNN, (MS)NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, the NY Times, the Washington Post (and most others) do the same thing for the other side.
As another poster points out above, the clues were all there. Anyone with access to the Internet could see the warning signs. Even with Obama's extremely abbreviated voting record, you could see exactly what he would do -- and he hasn't strayed from that path.
This is what I get for not reading the article first. Faux News. Where's my salt lick?
This will cause me mod damage, but I'm going to dive in here one more time: numbski, don't be a jerkwad.
There are several other sources for this same story. And yet, you are going to deny that it is true because the single link above is from 'Faux News'.
Forget Google, logic, or even a mild interest in the actual article itself, it's FOX BASHING TIME. WHOOOAAAAHHHHH!
Partisanship is a disease of the mind, and it just made you do something stupid. Reflect on that.
According to everything I've read, this is *not* an attempt to achieve "broader Internet wiretap authority" but rather to force providers to put systems in place so that they can easily and quickly comply with *existing* authority. You can argue that the existing authority is overreaching, but that's a separate matter.
I love how the OP gave this article a title of "Obama Wants . . ." (well, the submission used "US President wants. . ."). Not the FBI or the DOJ or the NSA, or even "Feds Want . . ." in order to be comprehensive; but Obama. As if this was some devious idea Obama had while dining on babies, rather than something the law enforcement and national security comunities have been working up for more than a half-decade. Of course he's responsible for the actions of the administration while he's president; but that's a long way from this being part of his nefarious plan for fascism. I looked for the quote from Obama or a spokesperson of his in TFA -- something, *anything* indicating this was an initiative specifically coming from him -- but couldn't find it. Nonetheless, just as the OP intended, 90% of the replies have been about Obama, rather than about the actual regulations. Way to be manipulated, folks. Given this, how unsurprising that the story link accompanying the submission was to Fox News, even though that Fox News story does absolutely nothing more than quote a story in the NYT.
And to head it off at the pass -- it shouldn't be necessary, but someone here will try it anyway -- I can't stand Obama. I think he's been terrible in a variety of ways. I just also can't stand people who are intellectually dishonest in an effort to score political points.