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These are the voyages of the starship Privacy. And I think they're about over:

U.S. Wants to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet

WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

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Tags: Internet, politics, privacy, security, wiretapping

Comment by The Diaper Pail on September 28, 2010 at 4:23pm
I don't think anyone (except perhaps criminals) objects to searches via warrant. But the Church commission didn't exist for no reason. The problem is that such technology, once in the hands of law enforcement, will be misused (see: tasers), and also that intentionally building back doors into otherwise-secure applications (theoretically, anyway) makes them less secure overall.
Comment by The Diaper Pail on September 28, 2010 at 4:30pm
Er, that'd be: Church COMMITTEE. Sorry. Brain fart.
Comment by The Diaper Pail on September 28, 2010 at 4:32pm
Hey, on an unrelated note, JTC - what do you think of the DOJ's argument in the al-Awlaki case?
Comment by wookie on September 28, 2010 at 7:10pm
Wow, you mean people are going to have to actually TALK to one another again? Like with our mouth things on our faces?
Comment by The Diaper Pail on September 29, 2010 at 12:45pm
I agree. If he's a citizen (which he is), I think it's clearly unlawful. However, I wonder if his actions qualify for any existing statutes which would allow his citizenship to be stripped?
Comment by GreenLantern on September 29, 2010 at 3:43pm
Um...I bet they are already monitoring the internet right now anyway, they just want to make it legal so they can do it more in the open. This move doesn't surprise me.
Comment by The Diaper Pail on September 29, 2010 at 4:48pm
It's not the monitoring of the Internet, GL (though that too is problematic, given the proscription against warrantless wiretapping between US citizens). This article is concerning forcing software developers to build back doors for government into security software.

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