BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: Hrothgar
Date: 02 Jul 02 - 05:02 AM

Lucky that the FBI are so honest, reliable, and ethical, isn't it? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jul 02 - 04:26 AM

pgpfone

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 02 Jul 02 - 03:15 AM

Encrypt your phone calls? How are we supposed to do that?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: mack/misophist
Date: 01 Jul 02 - 10:18 PM

It's called PGP. It's called encryption. Use it. Whether you need to or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jul 02 - 09:25 PM

I'll tell you how it works.....even though the Govt is not specifically allowed to eavesdrop on private conversations without 'just cause', they will find a way to use what they overhear 'accidently'.

Many years ago, a couple were having private, amorous, marital relations..(as in SEX)..in their own bedroom, when a young neighbor boy wandered in thru an unlocked door and saw them. When he described what he saw, the couple was arrested, tried & convicted of some sort of 'crime against nature'..(oral sodomy, I believe)....

*THIS* is the attitude which prevails among some of the listeners, and they will find an excuse to use information, even if they do not admit how they first obtained it....Yeah, I know... "that's far-fetched in this day & age"...pooh!...just watch...

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 02 - 07:46 PM

I believe there is a Consitutional provision against unreasonable searches.

And there is a tradition in law on the issue of individual provacy whether it is guaranteed by the Constitution or not.

Moving wiretapping so far out from under the restraints of the judiciary check is not conservative -- it's reactionary.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: michaelr
Date: 01 Jul 02 - 07:39 PM

Wish it were true!

Not to slag DougR, but he comes across as being quite conservative. Some conservatives have been countering concerns about the erosion of privacy by saying "yes, but the Constitution does not guarantee the right to privacy in the first place".

Does that make you feel better?

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Jul 02 - 07:30 PM

Hey, DougR says that if you're not guilty of anything you have nothing to be afraid of. He said that was true back during McCarthy's day too.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jul 02 - 07:27 PM

and?

somethng new?

Subject: Privacy Evaporates -- Instant Wiretaps
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 02 - 07:14 PM

From the Politech Newslist:

Privacy Villain of the Week:
CALEA wiretap tax

Consumers looking forward to lower phone bills or the next generation in whizbang wireless technology may have to wait a bit longer. First they have to pay for the privilege of having holes deliberately torn out of their phone security.

This Sunday, June 30 is the deadline dictated by the courts and the Federal Communications Commission for telecommunications companies to fall into full compliance with the 1994 Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Access Act (CALEA) .

Compliance in this instance means the installation of an infrastructure giving the FBI the access, at the flip of a switch, to "call content" (i.e., conversations) and "call data" (i.e., who dialed what when) at the flip of the switch.

This mandated infrastructure obviates the need for the cumbersome process of going to a judge, applying for a search warrant and installing a tap before listening in. Now, those rather quaint procedures are still on the books in some form or another -- it's just that the infrastructure is now such that the formal niceties of a legal permission slip aren't strictly necessary to listen in on phone calls on the qt.

The ready-to-tap system leaves consumer phone calls -- including the Social Security and bank account numbers entered via touch-tone -- much more vulnerable to other parties with the necessary technical know-how. The potential for identity fraud and outright theft is thus increased.

Now, of course, all of this doesn't come cheap. One small telephone/Internet provider in Kansas told PCWorld, "We were looking at getting into video, providing movies, cable, and entertainment content," but the costs of the CALEA compliance have pushed that back one or two years. Costs of compliance have been quoted as anywhere from $15,000 to $75,000 per switch.

VeriSign, which is looking to provide CALEA services to telecom providers estimates that in addition to the upgrade costs, maintenance of CALEA systems will run about "at a minimum $150,000 annually."

And of course these higher costs will restrict supply and raise prices above what they otherwise would have been. But it's all for a good cause -- the easy listening pleasure of any number of Privacy Villains of the Week.