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In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone

by bgentry 14y ago

In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities I call that progress.

nextparadigms 14y ago
Indeed. That comes from the same FBI who said a couple of months ago that having to get warrants makes their job harder.
- lkrubner 14y ago
  Indeed. Having to respect any civil rights protections (the need for a warrant, habeas corpus, the right to silence, the right to avoid self-incrimination, the ban on torture, etc) makes life more difficulty for the authorities. But history shows that those societies that have no civil rights protections are not happy or prosperous over the long term, and a government that rids itself of all checks and balances is a government that must necessarily be authoritarian and unaccountable.
howeyc 14y ago
This is exactly what I don't understand every time they try to pass a law like this, it's always "It's getting harder for us to catch criminals doing X," where X changes depending how hard they think they have to force it. My response is always, NOBODY said law enforcement SHOULD BE EASY, deal with it.
- cnbeuiwx 14y ago
  You have to give them some credit though because its a clever scheme. The "fight crime" argument is always valid since crime always exists. Its the same with "fight terrorism" since terrorism always exists. So if you use those arguments, in combination with a war that has no end (you cant win against a "ism"), you dont even have to talk to the public anymore and justify anything. Its very convenient and saves time. Note the sarcasm. :)
  - nirvana 14y ago
    You're right and this is true about everything the government does. There will always be health problems. There will always be "poor" people. There will always be drugs, or pornography or rude children or whatever excuse is currently convenient to pass laws to give government more power.
dailyrorschach 14y ago
I think there's plenty of abuse and they should be improved - but I don't think its crazy that in time there would be a system where, with a warrant, investigators could wiretap someone's online activities - provided they had reasonable suspicion that they were conducting their illegal business over the certain sites or one internet connection. I know this might sound like cleaning the noose we're about to hang someone with, but there are legitimate law enforcement needs, I often think the collective energy from the EFF and others would be better spent not on opposing anything like this, but on advocating and lobbying for strict judicial review and process. For example if we suspected someone was using Craigslist and other internet tools like Skype, to organize and coordinate a human trafficking ring, I would want them to be able to collect evidence akin to a wiretap to investiate the extent of the organization and bring prosecutions. That after-all is the main thing, if the representatives of the people in terms of law enforcement/districts attorneys/federal have a reasonable suspicion that you're committing a crime, we should be allowed to investigate - and for you to challenge any evidence gained in a court. Previous abuses of power are of course troubling, the NSA phone tapping and others comes immediately to mind, which is why I believe energy is best spent on ensuring proper checks and balances and the rule of law - it requires constant work to ensure we have adequate protections for citizens and an adequate ability to prosecute suspected offenders. Just a final point - I want to stress that I do believe the government has and will continue to overstep its bounds with regard to law enforcement, this has been true for time immemorial, and citizens will continue to fight back and push for legal reforms - but simply throwing our hands up and ignoring real, legitimate law enforcement needs seems silly too. Especially when agencies like mine can right now hijack individual sessions of you on our website and watch everything you do.
- cgoddard 14y ago
  It's ridiculous to design a system for the purpose of spying on its users, with users being aware of that. The only people that will be discussing illegal activities using that medium then will be those so oblivious and dense that they likely would have been caught any number of other ways without the eavesdropping. Savvy criminals will migrate to darknets and other methods of communication that are more robust against eavesdropping. Personally i think authorities should just give up on the idea of eavesdropping. With proper encryption modern communications can perhaps be intercepted, but never deciphered. Honeypotting seem like a much better strategy for catching internet criminals. Why would you ever shut down a child porn site or copyright infringement hub when you can instead take over and catch gather loads of evidence for prosecution?
AJ007 14y ago
I've advocated in other threads here for the need of more widespread, mass market, anonymous communications tools. This is not just an anonymity issue, but a critical tool for any company wanting to claw market share away from Facebook, Google, or whoever is their dominant competitor. E-mail, chat, and voice communications between two people should universally utilize end to end encryption. Service providers should have no knowledge of the contents of that communication, nor the ability to reveal the contents. Using private communication in order to serve advertisements to individuals is dubious. Small companies can not afford a data breaches. Building spying tools in to your service for any group or nation -- be it the US or China -- compromises the trust users have in you in addition to facilitating espionage, warrantless data theft, and other illegal activity. These spying services are more than welcome to access this data at the point it is received through the use of lawful means. Giving them on demand, effortless access to anything they please spawns a lazy, corrupt, and paranoid society for all involved.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Your point about "widespread" and "mass market" is important. People can't cope with encrypted email. There are very many broken implementations, and even with the good crypto people install it wrong or use it wrong. Something that's idiot proof is important. But then, "they'll" just pass a law requiring people to hand over the keys, or go to jail for X years. (Which could happen now under contempt of court laws, but would be easier under UK style RIPA law. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents) (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/counter-terrorism/regulation-investigatory-powers/ripa-codes-of-practice/ http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/counter-terrorism/regulation-in...) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Pow...) )

by bgentry 14y ago

nextparadigms 14y ago

Indeed. That comes from the same FBI who said a couple of months ago that having to get warrants makes their job harder.

lkrubner 14y ago
Indeed. Having to respect any civil rights protections (the need for a warrant, habeas corpus, the right to silence, the right to avoid self-incrimination, the ban on torture, etc) makes life more difficulty for the authorities. But history shows that those societies that have no civil rights protections are not happy or prosperous over the long term, and a government that rids itself of all checks and balances is a government that must necessarily be authoritarian and unaccountable.

howeyc 14y ago

This is exactly what I don't understand every time they try to pass a law like this, it's always "It's getting harder for us to catch criminals doing X," where X changes depending how hard they think they have to force it. My response is always, NOBODY said law enforcement SHOULD BE EASY, deal with it.

cnbeuiwx 14y ago
You have to give them some credit though because its a clever scheme. The "fight crime" argument is always valid since crime always exists. Its the same with "fight terrorism" since terrorism always exists. So if you use those arguments, in combination with a war that has no end (you cant win against a "ism"), you dont even have to talk to the public anymore and justify anything. Its very convenient and saves time. Note the sarcasm. :)
- nirvana 14y ago
  You're right and this is true about everything the government does. There will always be health problems. There will always be "poor" people. There will always be drugs, or pornography or rude children or whatever excuse is currently convenient to pass laws to give government more power.

dailyrorschach 14y ago

I think there's plenty of abuse and they should be improved - but I don't think its crazy that in time there would be a system where, with a warrant, investigators could wiretap someone's online activities - provided they had reasonable suspicion that they were conducting their illegal business over the certain sites or one internet connection. I know this might sound like cleaning the noose we're about to hang someone with, but there are legitimate law enforcement needs, I often think the collective energy from the EFF and others would be better spent not on opposing anything like this, but on advocating and lobbying for strict judicial review and process. For example if we suspected someone was using Craigslist and other internet tools like Skype, to organize and coordinate a human trafficking ring, I would want them to be able to collect evidence akin to a wiretap to investiate the extent of the organization and bring prosecutions. That after-all is the main thing, if the representatives of the people in terms of law enforcement/districts attorneys/federal have a reasonable suspicion that you're committing a crime, we should be allowed to investigate - and for you to challenge any evidence gained in a court. Previous abuses of power are of course troubling, the NSA phone tapping and others comes immediately to mind, which is why I believe energy is best spent on ensuring proper checks and balances and the rule of law - it requires constant work to ensure we have adequate protections for citizens and an adequate ability to prosecute suspected offenders. Just a final point - I want to stress that I do believe the government has and will continue to overstep its bounds with regard to law enforcement, this has been true for time immemorial, and citizens will continue to fight back and push for legal reforms - but simply throwing our hands up and ignoring real, legitimate law enforcement needs seems silly too. Especially when agencies like mine can right now hijack individual sessions of you on our website and watch everything you do.

cgoddard 14y ago
It's ridiculous to design a system for the purpose of spying on its users, with users being aware of that. The only people that will be discussing illegal activities using that medium then will be those so oblivious and dense that they likely would have been caught any number of other ways without the eavesdropping. Savvy criminals will migrate to darknets and other methods of communication that are more robust against eavesdropping. Personally i think authorities should just give up on the idea of eavesdropping. With proper encryption modern communications can perhaps be intercepted, but never deciphered. Honeypotting seem like a much better strategy for catching internet criminals. Why would you ever shut down a child porn site or copyright infringement hub when you can instead take over and catch gather loads of evidence for prosecution?

AJ007 14y ago

I've advocated in other threads here for the need of more widespread, mass market, anonymous communications tools. This is not just an anonymity issue, but a critical tool for any company wanting to claw market share away from Facebook, Google, or whoever is their dominant competitor. E-mail, chat, and voice communications between two people should universally utilize end to end encryption. Service providers should have no knowledge of the contents of that communication, nor the ability to reveal the contents. Using private communication in order to serve advertisements to individuals is dubious. Small companies can not afford a data breaches. Building spying tools in to your service for any group or nation -- be it the US or China -- compromises the trust users have in you in addition to facilitating espionage, warrantless data theft, and other illegal activity. These spying services are more than welcome to access this data at the point it is received through the use of lawful means. Giving them on demand, effortless access to anything they please spawns a lazy, corrupt, and paranoid society for all involved.

DanBC 14y ago
Your point about "widespread" and "mass market" is important. People can't cope with encrypted email. There are very many broken implementations, and even with the good crypto people install it wrong or use it wrong. Something that's idiot proof is important. But then, "they'll" just pass a law requiring people to hand over the keys, or go to jail for X years. (Which could happen now under contempt of court laws, but would be easier under UK style RIPA law. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents) (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/counter-terrorism/regulation-investigatory-powers/ripa-codes-of-practice/ http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/counter-terrorism/regulation-in...) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Pow...) )