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I think our webphone is being monitored...
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: laborat
In this mornings CNN edition online, under technology, an article states that the DOJ is trying to get additional authority to be able to wiretap web phone conversations. The usual "we need this to fight terrorism" arguments are expected to help win approval.
An edited version of the article is below.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Criminals could make plans over Internet phones without fear of getting caught if Congress does not ensure that existing wiretap laws apply, the U.S. Justice Department told a Senate committee Wednesday.
Investigators could find it harder to monitor Internet-based phone calls if the government decides to exempt them from traditional telephone regulations, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Laura Parsky said.
Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, promises to dramatically cut phone bills by using the Internet to carry voice calls. Start-ups like Vonage and established carriers like AT&T Corp. have signed up hundreds of thousands of customers over the past year.
A bill sponsored by New Hampshire Republican Sen. John Sununu would require the U.S. government rather than individual states to set standards, and would subject VoIP carriers to the same wiretap rules that apply to Internet providers like America Online, a unit of Time Warner Inc.
Parsky said Sununu's bill could make it more difficult to monitor VoIP conversations because it might exempt them from a 1994 wiretap law that covers conference calling and other advanced phone services.
Though the Justice Department can currently monitor VoIP calls and other Internet communications, that could be more difficult in the future if VoIP callers use features like call forwarding, she said.
"I am here to underscore how very important it is that this type of telephone service not become a haven for criminals, terrorists and spies," she said.
That 1994 law allowed the FBI to shift millions of dollars in wiretap costs onto phone carriers who were forced to comply with a long list of technical standards, said James Dempsey, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology.
While I am often accused of being overly paranoid in matters of government surveillance, it does seem that there exists the potential for political abuse of innocent people merely because they vote, think, or act differently than the current power structure wants them to.
While it is true that criminals and terrorists can and will use this web based technology, I have to think it is because it is cheaper to do so with the fact they can't be monitored as a bonus. DOJ and HS can't continue to use "Terrorism" as a catch-all rallying phrase to suppress our basic rights to privacy in cyberspace or the real world. Someone needs to do something or it will only get worse.
The sections outline in bold were the ones that bothered me the most. Not only are they capable of doing it, they are doing it, they have been doing it, and taxpayers are paying for it.
Posted by: elhior_manwe
i agree no one should be considered overly paranoid when it comes to our civil liberties these days. at every turn they are attempting to scare us into handing over personal freedoms and if we fall for it and let them take them we will never get them back. terrorism is a tactic, you cannot fight a war on a tactic, it is abstract.
Posted by: AOTY2KB
That and any war declared by the US so far on a noun has failed miserably.
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