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National Security Draft For Fining Tech Company "Noncompliance" On Wiretapping

Posted by Unknown on from the only-criminals-use-pgp dept.

Jeremiah Cornelius writes with what looks to be part of CISPA III: Children of CISPA. From the article: "A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Facebook and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur. ... 'The importance to us is pretty clear,' says Andrew Weissmann, the FBI's general counsel. 'We don't have the ability to go to court and say, "We need a court order to effectuate the intercept." Other countries have that.' Under the draft proposal, a court could levy a series of escalating fines, starting at tens of thousands of dollars, on firms that fail to comply with wiretap orders, according to persons who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. 'This proposal is a non-starter that would drive innovators overseas and cost American jobs,' said Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. 'They might as well call it the Cyber Insecurity and Anti-Employment Act.'"

7 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. FBI's general counsel - having a laugh? by Fluffeh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'We don't have the ability to go to court and say, "We need a court order to effectuate the intercept."...

    Can this guy be serious? The FBI doesn't have the ability to go to court and ask for a court order allowing them to listen in on conversations? Wow. Just utterly wow.

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    1. Re:FBI's general counsel - having a laugh? by nbauman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      'We don't have the ability to go to court and say, "We need a court order to effectuate the intercept."...

      I think he means, "Without a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, we don't have the ability to go to court ..."

    2. Re:FBI's general counsel - having a laugh? by Mullen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      'We don't have the ability to go to court and say, "We need a court order to effectuate the intercept."...

      Can this guy be serious? The FBI doesn't have the ability to go to court and ask for a court order allowing them to listen in on conversations? Wow. Just utterly wow.

      That leads me to believe that the FBI just says this stuff so that a good chunk of the population, which does not understand the 4th Amendment or Court Orders in general, just buys into what they are saying, just so they can get it.

      How the FBI intercepts anything without a warrant or court order and the evidence is not thrown out of court, is beyond me.

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    3. Re:FBI's general counsel - having a laugh? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "The police walk into your telephone switch room with a warrant, you let them listen. That's much much older than CALEA, that's only 20 years old."

      That's pretty irrelevant, though, because with telephones, tapping is pretty darned easy. But with other technologies it has NEVER been possible to "just listen in"... it just wasn't built in.

      That's not "refusal", it's simply not building something in a way that expressly caters to the police. And I don't give a damn. The police don't have a right to run the tech world.

      If they can't keep up, tough shit.

    4. Re:FBI's general counsel - having a laugh? by ganjadude · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the FBI's general counsel. 'We don't have the ability to go to court and say, "We need a court order to effectuate the intercept." Other countries have that.'

      Last time I checked, that was always a selling point of this country

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  2. Rights are inconvenient by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The 4th Amendment is getting in the way of FBI evidence-gathering.
    Good; that's what it's for.

  3. Amazing... by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its amazing that even with a court system that bends over backwards to help "law enforcement" agencies, they still think they need even more ways to violate basic rights.

    Its really amazing what has happened in the last 30 some odd years, to see a nation which used to truly be one of the freest in the world to now only paying lip service to freedoms. It used to be that if you wanted freedom, you came to the US, now its becoming increasingly obvious that if you value freedom, moving out of the US is the way to go.

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