How does the restoration of geographic location abilities to digital communication services translate in any way to me asking people to justify their freedoms?
Please elaborate on the point you were trying to make and I'll do my best to answer you. If you're confused about something I've said, please just ask.
The question is not whether it might be useful to law enforcement, the question is whether it is a good idea to give that much power to _anybody_.
See, what I'm trying to say, though, is that law enforcement has already *had* these powers for quite some time, when dealing with analog communications. With the acceptance of digital, law enforcement has started *losing* the ability to determine a call's geographic origin and, to more recent points, the contents of those communications entirely. It's not like they're being encrypted or anything, they simply lack the means today to even try to intercept the messages, AS ALLOWED BY THE COURT ORDER.
The CALEA, from what I can tell, simply puts digital communications on par with existing analog by allowing law enforcement to get the same amount of information from a conventional wiretap order. This is perfectly fine in my book. By opposing this, it will effectively obsolete law enforcement's ability to perform wiretaps at all as analog communications disappear.
Should we provide the government with a key to our front door so that they can easily access our insecure garbage cans? Should I be considered a criminal if I refuse?
That's what a search warrant is. If the cops get a search warrant, you are legally obligated to allow them access to your home. If you refuse, you are a criminal.
Despite what you seem to think, this law does *not* in the least bit allow them to circumvent the requirement that a court order be received first.
Take a look at the world _right now_ and see all of the racial and ethnic violence and then tell me that giving power to the "majority" is a good idea.
We are still talking about the United States, yes? Where is it that you live where racial and ethnic violence is being committed by the "majority"?
Like it will do any good if the government can monitor all forms of communication at will. The time to protest is when you still have some say.
By "at will" I assume you meant to say "upon receipt of a court order", yes? This is what you are protesting?
The same reason that your driver's license number is also encoded on that little magnetic strip. The same reason that certain radiolocation tags *broadcast* their ID's. The same reason your cable TV box announces its ID number to your cable company.
If I were a fed, and I had a pretty good idea who the kidnappers were, I'd be tapping the phones of their known associates and immediate family and any cellular phones they might own.
Tapping the phone of the victim is obvious.
What you don't acknowledge is that when wiretapping, along with the *conversation*, the *phone number* of the other party is collected, which of course immediately gives you an address...
EXCEPT if it's a cellular phone. This CALEA thing supposedly allows law enforcement to get the location of cellphone users via wiretap orders. Is this really such a bad thing?
Government agency obtains legislation requiring all owners of trash cans to provide and use a separate bin for receipts.
This is kind of a stretch, IMO. It would be more akin to the government requiring all trash cans to have an easily-removed lid.
The FBI is trying to force the rest of society to bend over to make their lives easier when investigation time comes around.
As I understand it, they're simply trying to re-gain wiretapping abilities that they've started to lose as as the result of us moving away from analog communications services.
In the past, it used to be a relatively straightforward thing to tap a person's communications lines. Nowadays, with our digital and computer networks, law enforcement officials haven't been able to get as much information (if any) out of the same types of wiretap orders.
>Don't hinder law enforcement's abilities to >conduct investigations in a LAWFUL and DISCRETE >manner just because there exists the POSSIBILITY >that these abilities will be misused.
Why on earth not? Isn't that the whole point of such legal gems as amendments 4 and 5 to the U.S. constitution?
Not quite. If an investigation is conducted in a "lawful" fashion, then obviously it is in compliance with the amendments you mention. My statement stands.
These things that are being provided to law enforcement *still* require the law to act only upon probable cause and through due process.
Unpunished crime is one of the prices of a free society. That's what the legal principle known as "innocent until proven guilty" is there for.
Agreed! It all depends on how much "unpunished crime" you're content to live with. It's apparent that you are content to live with more than I. You don't seem to want law enforcement to be able to adapt with technology, whereas I do.
Not at the moment, no. But I am not so ignorant of history or naive with respect to human nature as to believe that it can never happen in the future.
Ah ha! I toldja somebody would call me "naive" and "ignorant."
I'm not saying the government won't be out to get us in the future. That's not what this law is about. It's about fear that it *could* happen in the future.
All of the various persecutions in the past were done with overwhelming public support. If something like that does happen again, like you seem to think it will, I only hope that people like you will be around to fight against it.
However, this is not one of those times.
Even if I adopt your point of view for a moment, that's not a terribly optimistic pair of choices. #1 only works if there are a million of you or you become a full-time lobbyist.
But there are a million of me. Some 270 million, in fact. They may not all agree with me, but I take comfort in the hope that a great many of them make an honest effort to make themselves educated and heard in our political system, even if their views are directly opposite mine.
But are they being misused? Call me uninformed, but I can't think of a single instance where a device's serial number or a car's VIN has been used in a privacy-compromising or otherwise "bad" way against its owner.
Also, what makes you think web sites *can*, much less will, collect this CPU ID for every visit you make? The only way this is possible is if the web site codes up an ActiveX or Java applet that you run with "full permissions". (A normal Java/ActiveX object would not work without making changes to the underlying engine.)
If someone writes such an applet, and you agree to start it with full permissions, then I suppose your CPU ID could be recovered that once. Similarly, you could easily download a program that could pull this CPU ID and start secretly tracking you based on this number. Let's face it, though, if I were going to write such a trojan, there are probably a few better ways I could think to get sensitive information from your PC and track you than a CPU serial number.
Additionally I suppose it's possible for all of the JVM vendors to add in "hooks" in their implementations to allow applets in the "sandbox" to recover something as sensitive as the CPU ID, but why in God's name would they choose to do that? There's a reason the Java/ActiveX sandbox exists. It wouldn't make any sense for those same people to start putting in all sorts of back doors.
Anyways, this whole CPU ID thing has been argued over and over already, and since you still seem to think they're inherently evil, I doubt that my comments here will make a dent, so you won't hear from me any more on this thread.
Re:Not correctly phrased
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Hey, you're the one that elected those people into their offices of power...
There are dozens of perfectly valid reasons a CPU ID could and *is* being used that have absolutely nothing to do with invading your privacy or destroying your life.
Why do we have serial numbers in the first place? Vehicle Identification Numbers? Think about it from a Real World perspective and these things are hardly as evil as you seem to think they are.
Re:Not correctly phrased
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Of course you probably watched the search for his son's plane too, like a good American.
Not particularly. I was no more interested in that search than I am of any "missing private plane" search. Perhaps if the Kennedy family had made some personal impact in my life I would feel different, but that's not the case.
I merely quoted that statement because it sums up my thoughts on our government perfectly. It's not my fault if you don't vote or never write letters to your representatives and senators. It's not my fault that you elect people into office that constantly do things you don't like.
It may be my *problem*, since I, too, have to live with poor leaders, but fortunately it's a problem I can correct, rather than whining on Slashdot day after day.
I was about to respond..
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I think you present some good points, a few faulty ones, and was actually about to write up a nice response, right up until I read this line:
You call yourself informed? Moron.
I can't wait for the day that people can have an intelligent argument without resorting to name-calling.
I do. It's like high school. Selective listening.
Remember: You elected the people that are listening to your letters.
There's a difference: Whereas the posts I was talking about have been offering up fears and outright stating things guised in the appearance of fact, I was not. My post was stating my opinion and recommending courses of action, hence my lack of "facts" (thus factual supporting data).
Like most of you, I have no statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if wiretaps aided in a significant number of prosecutions that would have been impossible without them.
Your "distress" at unsubstantiated assertions seems to be just a tad selective.
Do you disagree with my statement? Again, I wasn't offering it as a fact. I simply said I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were true. I have no doubt in my mind that if I call my local police department, they will concur with my educated guess that a noticable percentage of convictions would not have been pursued or successful if wiretaps had been denied.
But, again, this is simply opinion. I don't think I'm being selective in the least.
I expect privacy-rights organizations to be biased in favor of privacy
I didn't realize this was a "privacy-rights organization". I simply thought it was Yet Another Section under Slashdot. If this assumption was wrong, my apologies.
Certainly, the government is biased in favor of expanding its own power,
This is another point where I don't share your certainty. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm simply saying I lack the necessary knowledge to be able to immediately say, "yes, of course they are." I believe the checks and balances in the three branches of our government have done *wonders* to keep any one area of government (such as law enforcement) from overstepping their bounds or "expand" its power in a way it was never meant to.
The whole point of the objections is to insist that law enforcement does in fact behave in a lawful manner. If you agree with this objective, I don't understand your complaint.
I'm not sure I understand this. I believe that, generally speaking, law enforcement *does* behave not only in a legal, professional manner, but in an ethical manner as well. That's not to say that there aren't exceptions, but I would hope that these exceptions are discovered and exposed by diligent folk like yourself, and the people responsible for these infractions answer for their misdeeds.
No -- as I said above, I think they're biased in favor of expanding their own power, and therefore not entirely trustworthy.
Is there such a thing as an organization that can be said to be entirely trustworthy? In my opinion, we have what we have. Our system of government allows ordinary citizens to not only participate, but shape our government. If the result of that is a government that is consistently going against your wishes, then a) you haven't been doing a very good job as a citizen; or b) the majority of educated people in the United States disagrees with you.
Possible solutions: a) Become more involved; b) Move out.
Re:Not correctly phrased
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Since you and I are an active part of our own governments (since we vote and write letters to our congressmen to ask questions or suggest courses of action), we work "with" our government "for" ourselves.
Perhaps this is just a fundamental difference in the way people like myself view our place in the government versus people like you... *shrug* (I don't mean that in a derogatory way).
Ever hear the phrase, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"?
Re:Just another step.
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If I had a Pilot in my pocket, would they strip search me?
It would probably be a bit difficult to hide an appreciable amount of explosives in a device the size of a Pilot.
They *don't* have to show you any regulations, any more than if they stopped you at the door and said, "Sorry, you're not allowed to bring guns in here." or if a cop stops you on the street and says, "Sorry, you're not allowed to park next to a fire hydrant."
It is interesting (perhaps news-worthy) that the number of security precautions at airports have increased, but it's hardly a thing to shout "privacy invasion!" over. Try visiting an airport in any foreign country.
Re:It's Worse Than You Think
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1. The FBI wants to tape the first 10 seconds of every call, and store it in an archive.
Where did you get this information? I can't possibly imagine this being allowed to happen. Could you give us a URL or a location in the CALEA that legalizes this, or are you just saying this capability is made possible by the government-mandated changes?
They can do this very easily because CALEA allows the feds to log into a switch and electronically listen to any conversation they want to.
I can't imagine this being legal to (ab)use in the manner you're describing. Unless you "forgot" to mention that they would need a court order first?
Perhaps it would be in the best interests of the phone companies to monitor what the government is monitoring, and ensure that proper authorization was given, assuming that law enforcement can do what you say as easily as you say, and assuming that a warrant is not required beforehand.
Re:What makes you think...
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Telephone companies have a "common carrier" status, which takes away many of their abilities to manage their lines and customers as if they were a truly private company and places a tremendous number of government regulations and protections on them.
Internet providers, however, have not been given this "common carrier" status. Thus, legally, your ISP can read your e-mail, monitor the web sites you browse, newsgroups you read, posts you make, whatever they want. They don't do that, of course, but they could probably get away with it legally (though they would probably go out of business as a result).
Re:2-q's: Canadians/others? & Central discussion a
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how does this bode for Canadians and others who are unfortunate enough to get shadowed by the usa's laws and lack of morals?
As an extreme option, you could simply choose not to do business with US companies. Express these privacy and confidentiality fears and concerns with these businesses. They will in turn complain to their government and things will change.
Though I suspect the number of people that will actually do this will be far too small to make any appreciable impact.
Condemning a piece of legislation because it allows law enforcement to function with all but the 1% of people smart enough to evade them is absurd. The significant majority of people law enforcement will be wiretapping have neither the knowledge nor technology to evade as you describe. That leaves a significant number of people left over that will doubtless be prosecuted successfully from the information obtained.
It honestly sounds like most of you people would prefer that law enforcement have *no* ability to collect evidence. No wire-taps, no search warrants, no security cameras.
I don't think I have *ever* read a Slashdot article with this number of posts and NOT A SINGLE FACT OR STATISTIC backing ANY of your objections up. No numbers, no statistical trend showing the number of illegal or unnecessary wiretaps, nothing. You are all simply feeding on each other's fears and magnifying them to a horrible frenzy.
Do you people really wish to live in a place where the privacy of every person is held in the highest regard -- untouchable even in the most extreme of circumstances? I take COMFORT in the fact that my law enforcement bodies are able, through a court approval, to discretely and confidentially monitor communications -- in any form. Like most of you, I have no statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if wiretaps aided in a significant number of prosecutions that would have been impossible without them. People -- we do have checks and balances in our governments. Statistics on wiretaps are collected and analyzed. If a group of people are requesting an ungodly number of wiretaps while producing few prosecutions, this will be noticed.
I am also extremely displeased by the high degree of bias in these "Your Rights Online" pieces. The "author" bringing the stories to us also brings his editorial along, complete with conspiracy theories and the invariable "Big Brother" tie-in. To privacy activists, this is pure adrenalin, hence the high number of very vocal anti-government and anti-law-enforcement posts.
Now, before you folks unleash your fury on my "naive" and "ignorant" ass, let me just say that I obviously don't want to see these types of things abused, but we DO already have oversight in place to see that this doesn't happen. If you feel that judges are being "tricked" into allowing wiretaps, or that these judges are "in" on the conspiracy with the cops to violate your personal privacy for their own kicks, THIS is what you should be working to fight.
Don't hinder law enforcement's abilities to conduct investigations in a LAWFUL and DISCRETE manner just because there exists the POSSIBILITY that these abilities will be misused.
Do you folks think that people in charges of these law enforcement organizations and the people appointed to act as judge are all complete IDIOTS? I'm perfectly willing to concede the fact that a small number of these people are, in fact, stupid people, but that does *not* mean that these organizations are collectively out to ruin your lives and your privacy for their own kicks. These people are fully aware that there are privacy activists out there that would have a field day if they fuck up, with a result of them being out of a job.
PLEASE don't read and take things at face value. THINK FOR YOURSELF and don't just jump on the frightened privacy bandwagon until you make an informed decision on your own. The government is NOT OUT TO GET YOU. If you don't like how your local law enforcement is behaving, you have two options: 1) Write a letter to your local government and media and express your concerns; 2) MOVE OUT. If you don't like how your national law enforcement is behaving, you have two options: 1) Write a letter to your congressmen and media and express your concerns; 2) MOVE OUT.
You people need to be working *WITH* your government to address your concerns, not *AGAINST* them.
Slashdot Mirror
How does the restoration of geographic location abilities to digital communication services translate in any way to me asking people to justify their freedoms?
Please elaborate on the point you were trying to make and I'll do my best to answer you. If you're confused about something I've said, please just ask.
The question is not whether it might be useful to law enforcement, the question is whether it is a good idea to give that much power to _anybody_.
See, what I'm trying to say, though, is that law enforcement has already *had* these powers for quite some time, when dealing with analog communications. With the acceptance of digital, law enforcement has started *losing* the ability to determine a call's geographic origin and, to more recent points, the contents of those communications entirely. It's not like they're being encrypted or anything, they simply lack the means today to even try to intercept the messages, AS ALLOWED BY THE COURT ORDER.
The CALEA, from what I can tell, simply puts digital communications on par with existing analog by allowing law enforcement to get the same amount of information from a conventional wiretap order. This is perfectly fine in my book. By opposing this, it will effectively obsolete law enforcement's ability to perform wiretaps at all as analog communications disappear.
You've obviously misunderstood my post.
Please re-read it and if you have anything valuable to say besides "boil your head," I'd be more than happy to discuss it with you.
Should we provide the government with a key to our front door so that they can easily access our insecure garbage cans? Should I be considered a criminal if I refuse?
That's what a search warrant is. If the cops get a search warrant, you are legally obligated to allow them access to your home. If you refuse, you are a criminal.
Despite what you seem to think, this law does *not* in the least bit allow them to circumvent the requirement that a court order be received first.
Take a look at the world _right now_ and see all of the racial and ethnic violence and then tell me that giving power to the "majority" is a good idea.
We are still talking about the United States, yes? Where is it that you live where racial and ethnic violence is being committed by the "majority"?
Like it will do any good if the government can monitor all forms of communication at will. The time to protest is when you still have some say.
By "at will" I assume you meant to say "upon receipt of a court order", yes? This is what you are protesting?
The same reason that your driver's license number is also encoded on that little magnetic strip. The same reason that certain radiolocation tags *broadcast* their ID's. The same reason your cable TV box announces its ID number to your cable company.
Convenience in retrieval. Period.
Is this Jason Earl of the MacArthur/San Antonio Earls? Just curious..
You lack imagination.
If I were a fed, and I had a pretty good idea who the kidnappers were, I'd be tapping the phones of their known associates and immediate family and any cellular phones they might own.
Tapping the phone of the victim is obvious.
What you don't acknowledge is that when wiretapping, along with the *conversation*, the *phone number* of the other party is collected, which of course immediately gives you an address...
EXCEPT if it's a cellular phone. This CALEA thing supposedly allows law enforcement to get the location of cellphone users via wiretap orders. Is this really such a bad thing?
They don't use anything cool like fiber optics, though. ;)
Curiously, though, do you have any idea how much these Solatubes cost? I can't find anything resembling a price on their web site...
Government agency obtains legislation requiring all owners of trash cans to provide and use a separate bin for receipts.
This is kind of a stretch, IMO. It would be more akin to the government requiring all trash cans to have an easily-removed lid.
The FBI is trying to force the rest of society to bend over to make their lives easier when investigation time comes around.
As I understand it, they're simply trying to re-gain wiretapping abilities that they've started to lose as as the result of us moving away from analog communications services.
In the past, it used to be a relatively straightforward thing to tap a person's communications lines. Nowadays, with our digital and computer networks, law enforcement officials haven't been able to get as much information (if any) out of the same types of wiretap orders.
>Don't hinder law enforcement's abilities to
>conduct investigations in a LAWFUL and DISCRETE
>manner just because there exists the POSSIBILITY
>that these abilities will be misused.
Why on earth not? Isn't that the whole point of such legal gems as amendments 4 and 5 to the U.S. constitution?
Not quite. If an investigation is conducted in a "lawful" fashion, then obviously it is in compliance with the amendments you mention. My statement stands.
These things that are being provided to law enforcement *still* require the law to act only upon probable cause and through due process.
Unpunished crime is one of the prices of a free society. That's what the legal principle known as "innocent until proven guilty" is there for.
Agreed! It all depends on how much "unpunished crime" you're content to live with. It's apparent that you are content to live with more than I. You don't seem to want law enforcement to be able to adapt with technology, whereas I do.
Not at the moment, no. But I am not so ignorant of history or naive with respect to human nature as to believe that it can never happen in the future.
Ah ha! I toldja somebody would call me "naive" and "ignorant."
I'm not saying the government won't be out to get us in the future. That's not what this law is about. It's about fear that it *could* happen in the future.
All of the various persecutions in the past were done with overwhelming public support. If something like that does happen again, like you seem to think it will, I only hope that people like you will be around to fight against it.
However, this is not one of those times.
Even if I adopt your point of view for a moment, that's not a terribly optimistic pair of choices. #1 only works if there are a million of you or you become a full-time lobbyist.
But there are a million of me. Some 270 million, in fact. They may not all agree with me, but I take comfort in the hope that a great many of them make an honest effort to make themselves educated and heard in our political system, even if their views are directly opposite mine.
It all depends on how they are used.
But are they being misused? Call me uninformed, but I can't think of a single instance where a device's serial number or a car's VIN has been used in a privacy-compromising or otherwise "bad" way against its owner.
Also, what makes you think web sites *can*, much less will, collect this CPU ID for every visit you make? The only way this is possible is if the web site codes up an ActiveX or Java applet that you run with "full permissions". (A normal Java/ActiveX object would not work without making changes to the underlying engine.)
If someone writes such an applet, and you agree to start it with full permissions, then I suppose your CPU ID could be recovered that once. Similarly, you could easily download a program that could pull this CPU ID and start secretly tracking you based on this number. Let's face it, though, if I were going to write such a trojan, there are probably a few better ways I could think to get sensitive information from your PC and track you than a CPU serial number.
Additionally I suppose it's possible for all of the JVM vendors to add in "hooks" in their implementations to allow applets in the "sandbox" to recover something as sensitive as the CPU ID, but why in God's name would they choose to do that? There's a reason the Java/ActiveX sandbox exists. It wouldn't make any sense for those same people to start putting in all sorts of back doors.
Anyways, this whole CPU ID thing has been argued over and over already, and since you still seem to think they're inherently evil, I doubt that my comments here will make a dent, so you won't hear from me any more on this thread.
Hey, you're the one that elected those people into their offices of power...
There are dozens of perfectly valid reasons a CPU ID could and *is* being used that have absolutely nothing to do with invading your privacy or destroying your life.
Why do we have serial numbers in the first place? Vehicle Identification Numbers? Think about it from a Real World perspective and these things are hardly as evil as you seem to think they are.
I thought his post was rather amusing --
and dead-on.
Of course you probably watched the search for his son's plane too, like a good American.
Not particularly. I was no more interested in that search than I am of any "missing private plane" search. Perhaps if the Kennedy family had made some personal impact in my life I would feel different, but that's not the case.
I merely quoted that statement because it sums up my thoughts on our government perfectly. It's not my fault if you don't vote or never write letters to your representatives and senators. It's not my fault that you elect people into office that constantly do things you don't like.
It may be my *problem*, since I, too, have to live with poor leaders, but fortunately it's a problem I can correct, rather than whining on Slashdot day after day.
I think you present some good points, a few faulty ones, and was actually about to write up a nice response, right up until I read this line:
You call yourself informed? Moron.
I can't wait for the day that people can have an intelligent argument without resorting to name-calling.
I do. It's like high school. Selective listening.
Remember: You elected the people that are listening to your letters.
Cheers...
If so, that record remains intact.
There's a difference: Whereas the posts I was talking about have been offering up fears and outright stating things guised in the appearance of fact, I was not. My post was stating my opinion and recommending courses of action, hence my lack of "facts" (thus factual supporting data).
Like most of you, I have no statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if wiretaps aided in a significant number of prosecutions that would have been impossible without them.
Your "distress" at unsubstantiated assertions seems to be just a tad selective.
Do you disagree with my statement? Again, I wasn't offering it as a fact. I simply said I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were true. I have no doubt in my mind that if I call my local police department, they will concur with my educated guess that a noticable percentage of convictions would not have been pursued or successful if wiretaps had been denied.
But, again, this is simply opinion. I don't think I'm being selective in the least.
I expect privacy-rights organizations to be biased in favor of privacy
I didn't realize this was a "privacy-rights organization". I simply thought it was Yet Another Section under Slashdot. If this assumption was wrong, my apologies.
Certainly, the government is biased in favor of expanding its own power,
This is another point where I don't share your certainty. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm simply saying I lack the necessary knowledge to be able to immediately say, "yes, of course they are." I believe the checks and balances in the three branches of our government have done *wonders* to keep any one area of government (such as law enforcement) from overstepping their bounds or "expand" its power in a way it was never meant to.
The whole point of the objections is to insist that law enforcement does in fact behave in a lawful manner. If you agree with this objective, I don't understand your complaint.
I'm not sure I understand this. I believe that, generally speaking, law enforcement *does* behave not only in a legal, professional manner, but in an ethical manner as well. That's not to say that there aren't exceptions, but I would hope that these exceptions are discovered and exposed by diligent folk like yourself, and the people responsible for these infractions answer for their misdeeds.
No -- as I said above, I think they're biased in favor of expanding their own power, and therefore not entirely trustworthy.
Is there such a thing as an organization that can be said to be entirely trustworthy? In my opinion, we have what we have. Our system of government allows ordinary citizens to not only participate, but shape our government. If the result of that is a government that is consistently going against your wishes, then a) you haven't been doing a very good job as a citizen; or b) the majority of educated people in the United States disagrees with you.
Possible solutions: a) Become more involved; b) Move out.
Since you and I are an active part of our own governments (since we vote and write letters to our congressmen to ask questions or suggest courses of action), we work "with" our government "for" ourselves.
Perhaps this is just a fundamental difference in the way people like myself view our place in the government versus people like you... *shrug* (I don't mean that in a derogatory way).
Ever hear the phrase, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"?
If I had a Pilot in my pocket, would they strip search me?
It would probably be a bit difficult to hide an appreciable amount of explosives in a device the size of a Pilot.
They *don't* have to show you any regulations, any more than if they stopped you at the door and said, "Sorry, you're not allowed to bring guns in here." or if a cop stops you on the street and says, "Sorry, you're not allowed to park next to a fire hydrant."
It is interesting (perhaps news-worthy) that the number of security precautions at airports have increased, but it's hardly a thing to shout "privacy invasion!" over. Try visiting an airport in any foreign country.
1. The FBI wants to tape the first 10 seconds of every call, and store it in an archive.
Where did you get this information? I can't possibly imagine this being allowed to happen. Could you give us a URL or a location in the CALEA that legalizes this, or are you just saying this capability is made possible by the government-mandated changes?
They can do this very easily because CALEA allows the feds to log into a switch and electronically listen to any conversation they want to.
I can't imagine this being legal to (ab)use in the manner you're describing. Unless you "forgot" to mention that they would need a court order first?
Perhaps it would be in the best interests of the phone companies to monitor what the government is monitoring, and ensure that proper authorization was given, assuming that law enforcement can do what you say as easily as you say, and assuming that a warrant is not required beforehand.
Telephone companies have a "common carrier" status, which takes away many of their abilities to manage their lines and customers as if they were a truly private company and places a tremendous number of government regulations and protections on them.
Internet providers, however, have not been given this "common carrier" status. Thus, legally, your ISP can read your e-mail, monitor the web sites you browse, newsgroups you read, posts you make, whatever they want. They don't do that, of course, but they could probably get away with it legally (though they would probably go out of business as a result).
Oops.. guess I shoulda used the preview button.
how does this bode for Canadians and others who are unfortunate enough to get shadowed by the usa's laws and lack of morals?
As an extreme option, you could simply choose not to do business with US companies. Express these privacy and confidentiality fears and concerns with these businesses. They will in turn complain to their government and things will change.
Though I suspect the number of people that will actually do this will be far too small to make any appreciable impact.
How are they supposed to know you were tricked? How can you prove you didn't go there intentionally?
Is it really that hard to duplicate your visit in a court?
"I clicked here, and closed the window like this." *poof*
Secondly, you *shouldn't* necessarily have to prove it. The *feds* would have to prove that you did it intentionally, not the other way around.
Cheers
Condemning a piece of legislation because it allows law enforcement to function with all but the 1% of people smart enough to evade them is absurd. The significant majority of people law enforcement will be wiretapping have neither the knowledge nor technology to evade as you describe. That leaves a significant number of people left over that will doubtless be prosecuted successfully from the information obtained.
...but not by any of this legislation.
It honestly sounds like most of you people would prefer that law enforcement have *no* ability to collect evidence. No wire-taps, no search warrants, no security cameras.
I don't think I have *ever* read a Slashdot article with this number of posts and NOT A SINGLE FACT OR STATISTIC backing ANY of your objections up. No numbers, no statistical trend showing the number of illegal or unnecessary wiretaps, nothing. You are all simply feeding on each other's fears and magnifying them to a horrible frenzy.
Do you people really wish to live in a place where the privacy of every person is held in the highest regard -- untouchable even in the most extreme of circumstances? I take COMFORT in the fact that my law enforcement bodies are able, through a court approval, to discretely and confidentially monitor communications -- in any form. Like most of you, I have no statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if wiretaps aided in a significant number of prosecutions that would have been impossible without them. People -- we do have checks and balances in our governments. Statistics on wiretaps are collected and analyzed. If a group of people are requesting an ungodly number of wiretaps while producing few prosecutions, this will be noticed.
I am also extremely displeased by the high degree of bias in these "Your Rights Online" pieces. The "author" bringing the stories to us also brings his editorial along, complete with conspiracy theories and the invariable "Big Brother" tie-in. To privacy activists, this is pure adrenalin, hence the high number of very vocal anti-government and anti-law-enforcement posts.
Now, before you folks unleash your fury on my "naive" and "ignorant" ass, let me just say that I obviously don't want to see these types of things abused, but we DO already have oversight in place to see that this doesn't happen. If you feel that judges are being "tricked" into allowing wiretaps, or that these judges are "in" on the conspiracy with the cops to violate your personal privacy for their own kicks, THIS is what you should be working to fight.
Don't hinder law enforcement's abilities to conduct investigations in a LAWFUL and DISCRETE manner just because there exists the POSSIBILITY that these abilities will be misused.
Do you folks think that people in charges of these law enforcement organizations and the people appointed to act as judge are all complete IDIOTS? I'm perfectly willing to concede the fact that a small number of these people are, in fact, stupid people, but that does *not* mean that these organizations are collectively out to ruin your lives and your privacy for their own kicks. These people are fully aware that there are privacy activists out there that would have a field day if they fuck up, with a result of them being out of a job.
PLEASE don't read and take things at face value. THINK FOR YOURSELF and don't just jump on the frightened privacy bandwagon until you make an informed decision on your own. The government is NOT OUT TO GET YOU. If you don't like how your local law enforcement is behaving, you have two options: 1) Write a letter to your local government and media and express your concerns; 2) MOVE OUT. If you don't like how your national law enforcement is behaving, you have two options: 1) Write a letter to your congressmen and media and express your concerns; 2) MOVE OUT.
You people need to be working *WITH* your government to address your concerns, not *AGAINST* them.