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FBI Pressures Internet Providers To Install Surveillance Software

Posted by Soulskill on from the a-piece-of-the-action dept.

An anonymous reader sends this quote from an article at CNet: "The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies' internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts. FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI's legal position during these discussions is that the software's real-time interception of metadata is authorized under the Patriot Act. Attempts by the FBI to install what it internally refers to as 'port reader' software, which have not been previously disclosed, were described to CNET in interviews over the last few weeks. One former government official said the software used to be known internally as the 'harvesting program.'"

24 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. ENOUGH ALREADY! by xystren · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since I have nothing to hide, YOU have no reason to look!

    How about we pull a reversal and be permitted to monitor the FBI, NSA and CIA own internal network? All in the name of the constitution to ensure they are not overstepping their mandates and/or boundaries.

    I wonder how well that would go over with them?

    1. Re:ENOUGH ALREADY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wow! That's the best response I've heard so far in this whole debate. Let us monitor those that monitor us. Great idea! Seriously...this is not sarcasm. And if they try and use encryption to hide what they are doing we pay them a SWAT team visit. ;-)

    2. Re:ENOUGH ALREADY! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Probably not at all. People by definition assume others are like they are, and when they themselves are crooks and lying bastards who wouldn't allow them to exist if they had a choice, they assume that others are just like that. Combine that with the psychological need to overcompensate and you're set.

      That works for governments as well as it does for superiors in the work place. The more he assumes that you're a slacker, the more likely he is one himself. The more he wants to "measure" your progress, the more likely he himself has nothing to show.

      And the more a politician goes on about the importance of "family values" and "morals", the more likely he's cheating on his wife with some 12 year old boy.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:ENOUGH ALREADY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Guilty until proven innocent. It's the new American way!

    4. Re:ENOUGH ALREADY! by jbolden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Up until recently the civilian population strongly supported aggressive anti-terrorism efforts. Were their civilian oversight it would have looked like what congressional oversight has. Now the civilian population is more evenly divided, but they still aren't strongly pro-freedom.

    5. Re:ENOUGH ALREADY! by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And even if most/all of what you have to hide is illegal, GET A WARRANT!

      USGOV: "We DID get warrants! We made up an extra-Constitutional, secret-decoder-ring-court out of whole cloth, and it gave us warrants for everything, everyone, and everywhere at any time. See? All "legal"!"

      Off-topic, but just out of curiosity, I wonder how many government/TLA big-wigs and/or their families drive "remotely-hackable" cars that could be made to "Michael Hastings" someone? Might be worth looking into.

      TLAs and other nosy government types need to remember that this shiny tech they abuse is double-edged. We citizens can maliciously hack and do drones, too...and on a scale that's orders-of-magnitude larger.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  2. I wonder when.. by epyT-R · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder when this whole top heavy mess in washington will come crashing down.. They don't need to worry about 'terrorists', foreign or 'home grown'. Their own self destructive behavior will do them all in first...and drag the rest of us citizens down with them.

    1. Re:I wonder when.. by geekymachoman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What self destruction ? It seems to me 'they' have a plan for a long time now and it's working out quite well, even with negative publicity.

      What's gonna change ? The president. .. ? So what ... the president is a spokesman for somebody, and this ain't tin foil shit, it's obvious to everybody but naive.
      Especially if you're looking at America from outside.

    2. Re:I wonder when.. by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hmm... considering that Bin Laden's goal was (allegedly) the destabilization of the USA along with its bankruptcy... Damn that guy was a strategy genius. And one in psychological warfare, too.

      That bastard really accomplished all his goals for this war. He read his enemies like an open book and played them like a violin.

      That, ladies and gentlemen, is genius. I don't like him or the development any more than any other sane person, but you have to admire that, whether you like it or not. He knew the weak spot of the US is the combination of greedy leaders and fearful followers, mixed with an industry ready, willing and able to exploit both, and he knew how to use that to his own goals.

      Brilliant. But why does brilliance in leaders always come packaged with being a complete asshole?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:I wonder when.. by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As much as I'd like to support your conspiracy theory, I think you overstate the ability of the US government.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:I wonder when.. by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      God dammit, you retarded sack of monkey shit. If there was any possibility of bin Laden being other than dead, it would destabilize the entire US of A to the point of people actually revolting.

      The amount of outrage people felt for him was enough to give up civil liberties continuously for a decade, and feel good about it. If, 20 years from now, bin Laden poked his head out from under a rock and gave an interview, or said a word, or farted, the American people would riot in the streets. The coverage of his killing (alleged, for your sake) was so complete and his death was so final that any variation from the truth would be more outrageous than failure to capture him.

      There is only one thing at this time that would unite the American people to overthrow the government, and that is bin Laden being alive. Nothing threatens the life of a soccer mom - financial crises, food chain shortages, coastal real estate being lost - nothing that she would give up the SUV and life of relative luxury, other than bin Laden being alive.

      Take every violation of the constitution, put it in one place, and soccer mom says "if it helps keep the terrorists away, I'm all for it." Do you know what the opposite of that is? Literally the one thing that is the complete antithesis to every justification anyone anywhere has put forth for anything done since 2001?

      Keeping the terrorists not only the opposite of "away", but alive. Lying about having killed him, and having him turn up somewhere on a video with a newspaper dated today. The SINGLE thing that could turn America into a rioting cesspool of VERY angry people, and you think that somehow the government thought it would be a good idea to lie about THAT?

      If he turned up somewhere, it would defeat every justification, every court decision, every individual's belief that the government is doing things for the people. Not just that they lied - that happens all the time and no one bats an eye. But they lied about the number one terrorist in the world - the one person who can scare every average person just by appearing on TV - being killed. Not by some random ass clown in a desert, but by America's most elite using America's latest technology. A fucking stealth-coptor dropped out of the sky and put an end to America's long national nightmare.

      And you think not just a few people but every person on record so far would be stupid enough to lie about it? I am all for caution, and have repeatedly posted such. But this is completely, unforgivably ignorant to even mention.

      I can go with you on the long thought train to thermite and faked moon landings and the grassy knoll and whatever other lunacy you want to repeat. But this is simply knee-jerk contrarianism.

      "What if it were true"? What if 9/11 was an inside job? Patriot act. What if there was more than a lone gunman? Plenty. What if the moon was faked? We beat Russia. What if everything Snowden leaked was true? Assumptions confirmed.

      What if bin Laden were alive? What purpose would that serve? A political boost for Obama, to give him an easy ride to a second term? We can eliminate every Republican ever, and every closeted racist as beneficiaries. Who has anything at all to gain? No one has ever justified anything by saying "It helped us get bin Laden". No secret court, spy program, political organization has ever seen benefit. There is nothing to gain, and everything to lose. Americans had forgotten about him nearly completely, and if he disappeared into the sunset few would have noticed other than Bush haters who liked to point out the shift from "number one priority" to "not a priority".

      Do you still think it is even a possibility that this did not happen?

    5. Re:I wonder when.. by meta-monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's the small group of people who write checks with seven or eight zeros to the left of the decimal place to both parties. You don't write checks that size to buy common sense. That shit's free.

      Examples: the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which states:

      SEC. 322. HYDRAULIC FRACTURING.
      Paragraph (1) of section 1421(d) of the Safe Drinking Water
      Act (42 U.S.C. 300h(d)) is amended to read as follows:
      ‘‘(1) UNDERGROUND INJECTION .—The term ‘underground injection’—
      ‘‘(A) means the subsurface emplacement of fluids by
      well injection; and
      ‘‘(B) excludes—
      ‘‘(i) the underground injection of natural gas for
      purposes of storage; and
      ‘‘(ii) the underground injection of fluids or propping
      agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic
      fracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermal
      production activities.’’      .(emphasis added)

      Energy companies make billions pumping natural gas, but those pesky things like the Clean Water Act get in the way of injecting hydraulic chemicals into the ground. It sure is good Congess employed common sense to pass legislation exempting "underground injection of fluids" from laws regulating "underground injection." Wait, that's not common sense...why else would they...?

      Example 2: H-1B visas to "solve" the phony STEM shortage so the most profitable companies in America can drive down wages for tech workers. That is not in the interests of the American people.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  3. Don't you think it's a little late now? by allaunjsilverfox2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This has been A LONG time coming. Decades of mission creep, no one complains. But now that it's come back to bite us in the Gluteus maximus, we're all surprised? Personally, I love the idea that it's happening. Sure, I'll probably be one of the ones tortured and jailed for no other reason than "suspicious activity". And I'm not looking forward to that bit at all. But people have been screaming at us that this was going to happen. And no one listened. You reap what you sew, etc. As it was stated in the past, When they start coming for you, it's too late to change things.

    --
    Restore the madness of youth's lechery
    1. Re:Don't you think it's a little late now? by Rougement · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, I completely disagree. Snowden provided proof of domestic spying and now the story is blowing up big time and going into all sorts of places. The world is waking up to this, now is the time to be indignant. Just because a few people "knew" 15 years ago, it doesn't mean it's old news for the vast majority of people.

  4. Incompetence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All this capability and warnings from Russia, and they still could not stop the Boston bombings. They also could not stop the Detroit shoe bomber.

    1. Re:Incompetence by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Those are not the target of this surveillance. Their target is the people that could throw out them from power: the citizens.

    2. Re:Incompetence by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's because they look at everything. When you have too broad a search you can't find what you are looking for. The real threats get lost in all the noise.

    3. Re:Incompetence by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you look at history the biggest threat to the citizens of a country is always their own government. No one is more likely to enslave or kill you. The founding father's realized this hence the protections built into the Constitution. Unfortunately the population is too easily manipulated into breaking the chains that keep the monster under control.

    4. Re:Incompetence by dryeo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's only true for the larger more powerful countries. For smaller (population or area) countries with large neighbors the largest threat is usually the neighbor.
      Almost all my life I've considered the largest threat to my freedom (and even my life) to be the United States of America, a country that seems to believe rights only belong to citizens so it's fine to abuse other countries. A country with a long history of oath breaking who can't even follow their own constitution.
      My country was actually created in response to that powerful neighbor at a time when they'd killed millions(?) of their own citizens over a power structure between the individual States and the Federal government.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    5. Re: Incompetence by StarFace · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think you are misunderstanding, or perhaps conflating, the limitations in any system designed to monitor information, and being unable to detect all deliberate actors within that system to foil monitoringâ"with "stupidity". Given how vast the data set is (basically all of social, and even to an extent, natural reality) it is nearly trivial to slip undetected through it, and the burden of detecting not only overt threats but clandestine ones is a problem of incredible complexity, since the resources of any monitoring agency cannot exceed the natural throughput of reality. There will always be more information than can be processed, since processing information is also a system generator.

      To put it simply: one can be extremely intelligent and capable, and even whole groups of like people can gather together and be effective as a unit, and still be utterly awash in the vastness that is the background noise of societal information. It is actually amazing, and a testament to their diligence, that they can get anything done at all.

      But oh no, go on and spout your narrow minded and simplistic essays on how things must be This or That.

      --
      V
    6. Re:Incompetence by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I used to feel that way, until I saw the government reaction to the spying leaks. That's malice.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  5. So tired of hearing Patroit Act by Guru80 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a bogus name given to bogus laws that flies right in the face of everything patriotic. Whenever that damn name is invoked (Patriot Act) it means we are having something taken from us be it rights or privacy.

  6. I wish by fullback · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I could move to another planet. I don't like this one anymore. It's too polluted with asshole politicians.

  7. We Never Learn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People often look back at datelines where fascists thrived (Germany, Cambodia, Spain, etc.) and think, "Wow! How couldthey just sit back and let that happen!"

    Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is how.