FBI’s Latest Proposal for a Wiretap-Ready Internet Should Be Trashed
I agree completely. The FBI already has vast powers of data mining, email monitoring FISA, Patriot Act provisions…. Enough. Just like Gitmo, these added powers are a terror war relic. Cut to a decade from now-Will we still have not rolled back the extraordinary powers? Or to put it another way how extraordinary or exceptional are powers that had a sunset clause that never applies?
The FBI has some strange ideas about how to “update” federal surveillance laws: They’re calling for legislation to penalize online services that provide users with too much security.
I’m not kidding. The proposal was revealed in The Washington Post last week — and a couple days ago, a front-page story in The New York Times reported the Obama administration is preparing to back it.
Why? Federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI have long feared their wiretap capabilities would begin “going dark” as criminals and terrorists — along with ordinary citizens — shift from telephone networks, which are required to be wiretap-ready under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), to the dizzying array of online communications platforms available today.The FBI’s misguided proposal would impose costly burdens on thousands of companies (and threaten to entirely kill those whose business model centers on providing highly secure encrypted communications), while making cloud solutions less attractive to businesses and users. It would aid totalitarian governments eager to spy on their citizens while distorting business decisions about software design. Perhaps worst of all, it would treat millions of law-abiding users with legitimate security needs as presumed criminals — while doing little to hamper actual criminals.
More: FBI’s Latest Proposal for a Wiretap-Ready Internet Should Be Trashed