Relax, lie back and let the HopeNChange wash over you, Progs. Just like Guantanamo is groovy as long as the President has a (D) after his name, it's groovy if the FBI snoops in your bidness as long as the (D) sprinkles Righteousness Dust over everything.Last week, during a talk for the American Bar Association in Washington, D.C., FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann discussed some of the pressing surveillance and national security issues facing the bureau. He gave a few updates on the FBI’s efforts to address what it calls the “going dark” problem—how the rise in popularity of email and social networks has stifled its ability to monitor communications as they are being transmitted. It’s no secret that under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the feds can easily obtain archive copies of emails. When it comes to spying on emails or Gchat in real time, however, it’s a different story.
That’s because a 1994 surveillance law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act only allows the government to force Internet providers and phone companies to install surveillance equipment within their networks. But it doesn’t cover email, cloud services, or online chat providers like Skype. Weissmann said that the FBI wants the power to mandate real-time surveillance of everything from Dropbox and online games (“the chat feature in Scrabble”) to Gmail and Google Voice. “Those communications are being used for criminal conversations,” he said.
And these people think they're smarter than us ...
The thing that really burns me is that BOTH sides play at this game. The PATRIOT Act (hawk, spit) was groovy to millions when there was an (R) snooping on those 'bad folks' but now that there's a (D) running things, nae so much; except to the people who fought the PATRIOT Act back then. Now THEY want more (yay for drone strikes on Americans!). When/if an (R) gets back on top, we'll get another round of 'MOAR PLEEZ!' It's a seesaw, and each party gobbles up a little more freedom every time they are on top.
ReplyDeleteBoth parties do it. It's tribalist nonsense, and none of them ever consider what will happen once they've given the government these powers and the next guy, who isn't their brand, gets in and weilds them.
ReplyDeleteThe Dems would have never, ever given W the powers to do these things, and it never occurs to them that this is exactly what they are doing - as soon as the next W gets into the white house...
I've mused about this before over on my blog...