Federal agents must have it pretty rough these days. It seems they don’t have time for pesky warrants, so the Bush administration has approved the illegal spying program of the National Security Agency.
Now over-burdened FBI agents want to force Internet service providers to create backdoors for easier government surveillance.
The FBI has drafted overly broad legislation that would “require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping,” according to CNET News.com.
The feds want to expand the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, because they say criminals have adapted to new technologies.
At face value, that seems to be in line with the purpose of the law: making sure law enforcement can carry out lawful, court-ordered electronic surveillance.
But FBI agents want their jobs to be made easier and easier and easier, at the expense of personal privacy and civil liberties. And architects of the Green Scare will undoubtedly use an expanded CALEA to go attack the privacy and civil liberties of environmental and animal rights activists.
Proposed amendments to CALEA would require manufacturers to offer upgrades or “modifications” needed to support Internet wiretapping. They would also include instant messaging in wiretapping requirements.
And according to CNET, the proposal would also
Force Internet service providers to sift through their customers’ communications to identify, for instance, only VoIP calls. (The language requires companies to adhere to “processing or filtering methods or procedures applied by a law enforcement agency.”) That means police could simply ask broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast or Verizon for wiretap info–instead of having to figure out what VoIP service was being used.
Oh yeah, and under this proposal the Justice Department would no longer have to publish a public “notice of the actual number of communications interceptions” every year. In other words, federal agents want more surveillance power, and they don’t want to tell anyone how often they use those widespread powers. I guess that’s one way to sidestep pesky privacy rights: if nobody knows how the law is being used, nobody knows how it’s being abused.