FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance

Alfie John alfiej at fastmail.fm
Wed Oct 29 19:34:25 PDT 2014


On Thu, Oct 30, 2014, at 12:01 PM, Ryan Carboni wrote:
> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/29/fbi-powers-hacking-computers-surveillance
>
> The FBI <http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi> is attempting to
> persuade an obscure regulatory body in Washington to change its rules
> of engagement in order to seize significant new powers to hack into
> and carry out surveillance of computers throughout the US and around
> the world.

Australia's counterpart ASIO unfortunately got it passed:

  http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/terror-laws-clear-senate-enabling-entire-australian-web-to-be-monitored-and-whistleblowers-to-be-jailed-20140926-10m8ih.html

  "Australian spies will soon have the power to monitor the entire
  Australian internet with just one warrant, and journalists and
  whistleblowers will face up to 10 years' jail for disclosing
  classified information."

Here's the kicker:

  "Anyone - including journalists, whistleblowers and bloggers - who
  "recklessly" discloses "information ... [that] relates to a special
  intelligence operation" faces up to 10 years' jail. Any operation can
  be declared "special" by an authorised ASIO officer"

What would be great to see would be if all Australian journalists banded
together to counter the new laws, by self-imposing a gag order on _all_
information that the government wanted to put out. In other words, stop
being a conduit for government propaganda i.e. no questions, no
interviews, no articles, no opinion pieces etc. and _only_ give air time
to those who opposed the new laws. This would be even better if we were
in an election cycle.

Unfortunately however, the FBI will get it what they want one way or
another.

I, for one, welcome our new surveillance overlords /s

Alfie

-- 
  Alfie John
  alfiej at fastmail.fm



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