FBI urges Congress to expand Internet wiretapping

[cory777]

Source: Raw Story

The FBI urged members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on Thursday to update the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and make it easier for authorities to eavesdrop on Internet.

The act was passed in 1994 and requires telecommunication companies to design their equipment and services to ensure that law enforcement and national security officials can monitor telephone and other communications whenever necessary.

"Over the years, through interpretation of the statute by the Federal Communications Commission, the reach of CALEA has been expanded to include facilities-based broadband internet access and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services that are fully inter-connected with the public switched telephone network," FBI General Counsel Valeria Caproni told the subcommittee.

"Although that expansion of coverage has been extremely helpful, CALEA does not cover popular Internet-based communications modalities such as webmail, social networking sites or peer-to-peer services."

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/17/fbi-urges-congress-to-expand-internet-wiretapping/

---

Activist News - http://activistnews.blogspot.com

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. I don't trust the FBI on this matter.

In white islands it would be way too easy to convince family members that work in the FBI that their darker neighbors are acting suspiciously.

[toddwv]

2. Thank you for your response.

The FBI's automated internet listening system (F.A.I.L.S.)has detected that you are dissatisfied with the violation of your Constitutional rights. We would like to remind you that we are trying to keep the internets safe from terrorist, child pornography and people who download mp3s. Please respect our authority.

Thank you,
Your FBI

[skoalyman]

3. im an errorist oh thats terrorist

errorist -One who encourages and propagates error

[Webster Green]

4. Yo, FBI!

FUCK YOU, ASSHOLES! :hi:

[sakabatou]

6. +1

[saras]

5. For what?

The FBI, for so long now, has been such a complete FAIL that you have to suspect that they ONLY exist to do shady illegal things for corporations.

As far as I'm concerned, if they're too incompetent to do their job while following Constitutional guidelines, they're FAR too incompetent to be trusted with powers beyond that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Nicely put.

[blackspade]

7. more government intrusion.

Lame.

[L. Coyote]

8. The Egypt Lesson: We need to read everyone's Facebook and Tweets!!

[defendandprotect]

9. America can no longer be based on a Gestapo FBI and a terrorist CIA --

that would be a good place to begin to end fascism in America!






THANK YOU FOR THE HEARTS -- AND A :hug: BACK -- !!

[Rex]

10. Snoop snoop snoop.

Spy spy spy.

[boppers]

11. Good luck with that.

Globally, geeks saw this coming years ago, when the US tried to regulate SSL. Solutions were rapidly found all over the globe, and now the FBI (etc.) is whining about it... you can't "undo" publicly available cryptography, nor can you require people to only run "government authorized" software, or provide intercept points on all of their private networks.

Of course, much of this will likely sneak in the back-doors anyways, if the net-neutrality people have their way on making sure all of our internet content is federally monitored "to ensure it isn't being biased".