FBI Adopts INVASIVE INTERNET SURVEILLANCE TECHNIQUES-Collecting MORE Data On Innocent Americans

[kpete]

FBI turns to broad new wiretap method
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: January 30, 2007, 4:00 AM PT

The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords.

Such a technique is broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system, later renamed DCS1000. It raises concerns similar to those stirred by widespread Internet monitoring that the National Security Agency is said to have done, according to documents that have surfaced in one federal lawsuit, and may stretch the bounds of what's legally permissible.

Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. (An Internet Protocol address is a series of digits that can identify an individual computer.)

more at:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6154457.html

[originalpckelly]

1. Never did I think ZDnet would ever break such an important story...

I thought wrong.

[lvx35]

2. Here's how this works:

You take some young kid who likes to take his laptop to wifi spots and or wardrive, and you put him under suspicion of working for Al Qaeda, get a warrant to watch him. Then ANY wifi spot he goes through, you obvious HAVE to get the records of anybody there, and hell, he could have been there a month ago, get those too. So after awhile, you use this kid as a proxy mechanism to watch many people.

[rman]

5. makes sense

it's all about plausibility.

From plausible deniability to plausible urgency and plausible cause - they made that one up themselves, but they do that all the time; making the rules as they go.
Come to think of it, it's not even that plausible. It's more like plausible plausibility. Plausible plausibility of a cause to wiretap everyone all the time. Welcome to 1984.

[lvx35]

6. "plausible cause"

that's golden, thank you for that~ :)

[quiet.american]

3. I've come to assume that every breath I take, they'll be watching me.

But I will NEVER love Big Brother.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

4. I know that they tap into my computer...

I have been monitoring all the activity with a new suite of tools... my computer mysteriously wakes up and connects to a LAN while it is in standby . Not your typical activity of a worm. Very advanced. So I just want to say -- "Hi boys" and hope you all sleep well at night. :kick:

[MissWaverly]

7. Hey, of course they troll through here

so glad that they worried so much about our personal liberties that they take them away
at every opportunity.

:-(

[Edweird]

8. Is it a dictatorship yet? N/T