Dave,
Data retention laws. Purpose-built voice and data wiretapping
capabilities in communications gear. A sharp salute to the masters
of the Black Chamber, with terrorism and child abuse the rhetorical
keys to creating the pervasive surveillance society.
But there's a piece missing. Crypto controls of course!
Despite their fundamental impracticality, laws prohibiting,
controlling, or penalizing the use of "untappable" crypto will be
increasingly enticing to the powers-that-be. For of what use is all
that extremely expensive wiretapping capability if you can't
interpret the damned bits?
Such control laws would of course trigger a vast escalation in the
crypto "arms race" -- with ever more emphasis on steganographic and
other message obscuring techniques. Innocents will have their
personal and business privacy eviscerated, while the truly evil will
plunge deeper from view, with knee-jerk reactions pulling our basic
liberties down the rathole as well.
After all, even the road to "1984" was paved with good intentions.
Indeed, "He loved Big Brother."
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
- International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com
- - -
Begin forwarded message:
From: Richard Forno <rforno@infowarrior.org>
Date: July 8, 2006 2:22:38 AM EDT
To: Blaster <rforno@infowarrior.org>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: FBI plans new Net-tapping push
FBI plans new Net-tapping push
By Declan McCullagh
http://news.com.com/FBI+plans+new+Net-tapping+push/
2100-1028_3-6091942.html
Story last modified Fri Jul 07 18:55:01 PDT 2006
The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet
service
providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force
makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping,
CNET
News.com has learned.
FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting
last
Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be
introduced by
Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources
familiar with
the meeting.
The draft bill would place the FBI's Net-surveillance push on solid
legal
footing. At the moment, it's ensnared in a legal challenge from
universities
and some technology companies that claim the Federal Communications
Commission's broadband surveillance directives exceed what Congress
has
authorized.
The FBI claims that expanding the 1994 Communications Assistance
for Law
Enforcement Act is necessary to thwart criminals and terrorists who
have
turned to technologies like voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.
"The complexity and variety of communications technologies have
dramatically
increased in recent years, and the lawful intercept capabilities of
the
federal, state and local law enforcement community have been under
continual
stress, and in many cases have decreased or become impossible,"
according to
a summary accompanying the draft bill.
Complicating the political outlook for the legislation is an ongoing
debate
over allegedly illegal surveillance by the National Security
Administration--punctuated by several lawsuits challenging it on
constitutional grounds and an unrelated proposal to force Internet
service
providers to record what Americans are doing online. One source, who
asked
not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of last Friday's
meeting, said the FBI viewed this as a top congressional priority for
2007.
Breaking the legislation down
The 27-page proposed CALEA amendments seen by CNET News.com would:
b" Require any manufacturer of "routing" and "addressing" hardware to
offer
upgrades or other "modifications" that are needed to support Internet
wiretapping. Current law does require that of telephone switch
manufacturers--but not makers of routers and network address
translation
hardware like Cisco Systems and 2Wire.
b" Authorize the expansion of wiretapping requirements to "commercial"
Internet services including instant messaging if the FCC deems it to
be in
the "public interest." That would likely sweep in services such as in-
game
chats offered by Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming system as well.
b" Force Internet service providers to sift through their customers'
communications to identify, for instance, only VoIP calls. (The
language
requires companies to adhere to "processing or filtering methods or
procedures applied by a law enforcement agency.") That means police
could
simply ask broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast or Verizon for
wiretap
info--instead of having to figure out what VoIP service was being
used.
b" Eliminate the current legal requirement saying the Justice
Department must
publish a public "notice of the actual number of communications
interceptions" every year. That notice currently also must disclose
the
"maximum capacity" required to accommodate all of the legally
authorized
taps that government agencies will "conduct and use simultaneously."
Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute and
member of
a Homeland Security advisory board, said the proposal would "have a
negative
impact on Internet users' privacy."
"People expect their information to be private unless the government
meets
certain legal standards," Harper said. "Right now the Department of
Justice
is pushing the wrong way on all this."
Neither the FBI nor DeWine's office responded to a request for comment
Friday afternoon.
DeWine has relatively low approval ratings--47 percent, according to
SurveyUSA.com--and is enmeshed in a fierce battle with a Democratic
challenger to retain his Senate seat in the November elections.
DeWine is a
member of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee charged with overseeing
electronic
privacy and antiterrorism enforcement and is a former prosecutor in
Ohio.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., decided 2-1
last
month to uphold the FCC's extension of CALEA to broadband
providers, and
it's not clear what will happen next with the lawsuit. Judge Harry
Edwards
wrote in his dissent that the majority's logic gave the FCC "unlimited
authority to regulate every telecommunications service that might
conceivably be used to assist law enforcement."
The organizations behind the lawsuit say Congress never intended
CALEA to
force broadband providers--and networks at corporations and
universities--to
build in central surveillance hubs for the police. The list of
organizations
includes Sun Microsystems, Pulver.com, the American Association of
Community
Colleges, the Association of American Universities and the American
Library
Association.
If the FBI's legislation becomes law, it would derail the lawsuit
because
there would no longer be any question that Congress intended CALEA to
apply
to the Internet.
Lauren Weinstein