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FBI Pressures Internet Providers To Install Surveillance Software
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.'"
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?
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.
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
The "harvesting program" brought in a bumper crop of civil liberties this year.
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.
Let me know who's declining to install warantless taps and I'll put them on my list of businesses to engage for projects.
For those wondering, Democracy Now carried the Senate hearing a day or two ago with Senator Lahey grilling the Deputy Director of the NSA, who revealed that of all the S.215 intercepts that have happened since 9/11, he could point to only one terrorist plot that maybe (just maybe) would have happened 'but for' the NSA spying. This is the purported benefit of sacrificing the privacy of three hundred million people.
I haven't seen this make the mainstream news yet, at least from the links on the aggregators I read. Oh, but since the spying justification is falling apart, there's going to be a terrorist attack on Sunday. :P
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
With latest revelations going mainstream, we're transitioning from stealth surveillance and oppresive state to overtly oppresive corporate fascist state. How long will it take for government opressions to become mainstream ? US police and security apparatus is already quite oppresive and corrupt (propably the worst in the developed world with the biggest prisoner population in the whole world), yet people tend to ignore this. Opressions from corporate fascist state will become part of everyday life sooner than people expect.
to either blow up the patriot act to bits or loose their jobs. Are they for or against the people ? That should be the only matter on the next election agenda. .. i don't know what's less frustrating. Is it knowing you're screwed like in Russia or living with one's pants down pretending we're not getting screwed ?
looks to me like they're against the people they are " supposed " to serve. If that's not true , how is this a democracy ? Or is it just tyranny under the disguise of democracy ? I mean
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.
They told me if I voted for John McCain we would see this kind of escalating government abuse. And they were right!
I could move to another planet. I don't like this one anymore. It's too polluted with asshole politicians.
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.
I wonder how long hacks and other enthusiasts get tired of being monitored up the ass before an alternative Internet gets created. Piggy backed on the Internet, but offering true end to end encryption and complete anonymity. I'm not talking TOR with it's limited exit nodes, I'm talking where every person on the 'network' is an exit node. Visiting a website with say a page of 10 images results in a server log of 11 different IP addresses.
When the target of snooping were foreing citizens all was OK, no reason to complain. Then they started watching "suspicious people", but it was for national security, just a few, is justified. Now is on everyone, specially US citizens, your time to complain has passed already.
Now wait for the same sequence with drones. Just try to avoid the wrong neighbourhoods
I find it amusing and disturbing that the normal ideals of "what goes around, comes around" strictly does not apply here. If Bradley Manning leaks information, if Edward Snowden tells of systems used for spying (not even the details, just that the programs exist), or if Julian Assange stands behind the information being revealed, then the US government goes all ballistic on them, they are criminals, and enemies, and must be stopped, tortured, killed, sent to a kangaroo court with a secret trial, secret evidence, and millions of years in prison. I thought about Snowden, and what the shadows he has to hide in, and it reminded me of Leon Trotsky (killed by the Russian government in Mexico in 1940). The Patriot Act grants absolute power, and is wide open to absolute corruption, and they cleave to it like a rat pup to its mothers teat. What Orwellian hell has this country created for itself? Clearly the citizens are in no way able to control the out-of-control nature. The poor cannot affect change so their ranks swell. They desperately vote for the political left, yet see little relief. The right are desperate to keep getting richer, and also to stem the power of government, and while they keep getting richer, the government keeps going out of control. The political machine in the US is broken, and as a result, the US is a country out of control. I see 1) The middle class to all become poor, 2) the rich to become ultra rich 3) the government spy agencies to swell to 10x their size, 4) US foreign debt to swell 5) More cities in the US to go bankrupt 6) Increased salaries for executives 7) continued abuses by banks ...since we did not learn from the last disaster, we are prone to another, bigger one 8) The US government using drones to kill thousands/millions of its own people. The poor will lose their citizenship. The US government may even try to deport them to other countries.
you are correct they cannot effectively monitor all communication. Yet, they attempted to do just that rather than expending the resources monitoring threats they had been warned about repeatedly.
Pretend you are responsible for reducing terrorism. You're giving a hundred million dollar budget, a list of 50 people who appear to be threats, and the phone numbers of major internet providers. Do you:
a) use that money to closely monitor the 50 suspects
Or
b) make logs of every email and phone call of every law abiding citizen, so you have more data than you can possibly look at.
Choosing B is stupid.
There's only one way to get our privacy back (and it's a long shot). Use what Constitutional power we have to change the law. Proposed 28th Amendment: No person, group, or agency, public or private, foreign or domestic, may collect, record, transmit, or disclose any private information beyond that defined in the United States Census about any individual without express written permission of the individual or court order specific to an active criminal investigation. Private information includes, but is not limited to, location, financial transactions, medical records, school records, arrest records, associates, and associations. Candidates for elected positions must submit seven years past income tax records at least ninety (90) days before elections.
Now that I said that, I fell better.