Real-Time Gmail Spying a 'Top Priority' For FBI This Year

Fnord666 sends this quote from an article at Slate: "Despite the pervasiveness of law enforcement surveillance of digital communication, the FBI still has a difficult time monitoring Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox in real time. But that may change soon, because the bureau says it has made gaining more powers to wiretap all forms of Internet conversation and cloud storage a 'top priority' this year. ... a 1994 surveillance law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act only allows the government to force Internet providers and phone companies to install surveillance equipment within their networks. But it doesn't cover email, cloud services, or online chat providers like Skype. Weissmann said that the FBI wants the power to mandate real-time surveillance of everything from Dropbox and online games ('the chat feature in Scrabble') to Gmail and Google Voice. 'Those communications are being used for criminal conversations,' he said."

Comments

Re:My Thoughts Exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the means of communication designed specifically to legally exchange criminal conversations and items - the diplomatic mail.

Re:Who wants to make their lives interesting?

[MiG82au]

WTF, have none of you heard of OTR (Off The Record) IM encryption? You can't use it through the gmail interface, but you can use Google's IM network (which uses the jabber protocol) with third party IM clients which support OTR. What passes through Google's servers is then encrypted gibberish.

And you should not be using this just when you want to have a secret conversation; you use it all the time so that anybody snooping understands that you disagree with the principle of snooping, even when you have nothing to hide.