--- http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1385,00.html The Netly News Network (http://netlynews.com/) September 10, 1997 Building in Big Brother By Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) The U.S. Congress, bowing to law enforcement demands for more wiretap powers, is preparing to approve a scheme that endangers the personal freedom of every American. Nobody doubts that wiretaps are useful tools for law enforcement agents. FBI Director Louis Freeh, who as a young agent built his career on them, knows this well. But Freeh's plan would expand the FBI's eavesdropping ability by building Big Brother into every word processor, every e-mail program and every web browser. All computer software distributed after 1998 would have a special, secret backdoor for government access to your most private files. Even your Internet provider would be deputized as a cyber-snoop. It's the technological equivalent of requiring that every homeowner turn over a spare copy of his front door key to the FBI. This is the same FBI that has a long and disturbing history of abusing Americans' privacy. As director, J. Edgar Hoover built a successful career out of illegal wiretaps, secret files and political blackmail. Hoover despised Martin Luther King, Jr. -- branding him an "obsessive degenerate" -- and once sent him an anonymous letter, using information gathered through illegal surveillance, to encourage the depressed civil rights leader to commit suicide. Hoover's legacy? Having the FBI headquarters bear his name today. [...]