FBI wants widespread monitoring of 'illegal' Internet activity...

[Zim Hosein]

WASHINGTON--The FBI on Wednesday called for new legislation that would allow federal police to monitor the Internet for "illegal activity."

The suggestion from FBI Director Robert Mueller, which came during a House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing, appears to go beyond a current plan to monitor traffic on federal-government networks. Mueller seemed to suggest that the bureau should have a broad "omnibus" authority to conduct monitoring and surveillance of private-sector networks as well.

The surveillance should include all Internet traffic, Mueller said, "whether it be .mil, .gov, .com--whichever network you're talking about." (See the transcript of the hearing.)

In response to questions from Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, Mueller said his idea "balances on one hand, the privacy rights of the individual who are receiving the information, but on the other hand, given the technology, the necessity of having some omnibus search capability utilizing filters that would identify the illegal activity as it comes through and give us the ability to preempt that illegal activity where it comes through a choke point."

In response, Issa said: "Can you have someone on your staff designated to work with members of Congress on trying to craft that legislation?"

If any omnibus Internet-monitoring proposal became law, it could implicate the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. In general, courts have ruled that police need search warrants to obtain the content of communication, and the federal Wiretap Act created "super warrant" wiretap orders that require additional steps and judicial oversight.

In addition, it's unclear whether "illegal activity" would be limited to responding to denial-of-service attacks and botnets, or would also include detecting other illegal activities, such as online gambling, the distribution of "obscene" images of adults engaged in sexual acts, or selling drugs without a license.

FBI wants widespread monitoring of 'illegal' Internet activity :|

 

[ballmode]

 

[Baked]

Is free porn illegal?

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: Baked
Is free porn illegal?

If it's copyrighted.

 

[Phokus]

Welcome to Bush's America. Apparently we're trying our best to reach the Chinese government's level of a dystopian nightmare.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

How are they going to monitor thousands of petabytes of information at the same time?

 

[AlienCraft]

Originally posted by: tenshodo13
How are they going to monitor thousands of petabytes of information at the same time?

They'll use The Matrix.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: TallBill

Originally posted by: Baked
Is free porn illegal?

If it's copyrighted.

Amateur porn FTW!


Another thought: I noticed that Skype says that they encrypt all their data. So much for wiretapping. :laugh:

 

[Cristatus]

What about the non-USicans? What if I'm sitting in India, looking at, for example, Anandtech (whose servers I assume are based in the US)? Does it still get scanned? If so, then this can NOT go through! How can that be in accordance with international agreements?

(C)

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: tenshodo13
How are they going to monitor thousands of petabytes of information at the same time?

The FBI's Carnivore software might be an option, even though it was "officially" abandoned from what I have read.

 

[ElFenix]

didn't we vote in democrats to stop this crap?

 

[Shawn]

Might as well just live in Communist China the way things have been going lately.

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
didn't we vote in democrats to stop this crap?

cute.. you think there is a difference in the major parties

 

[BoomerD]

Why is this not in P&N?

 

[imported_Lothar]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: TallBill

Originally posted by: Baked
Is free porn illegal?

If it's copyrighted.

Amateur porn FTW!


Another thought: I noticed that Skype says that they encrypt all their data. So much for wiretapping. :laugh:

That's what they want you to think.
:shifty eyes:

 

[bctbct]

lets stop the spammers then move on to everyone else.

 

[mitchel]

Heil Hitler.


Oh wait.

 

[Modelworks]

According to the other thread on reading of hard drives by customs, people are fine with it as long as it catches the bad guys.
Those same people say "If you have nothing to hide then you will not mind the government looking at everything you do online"

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: tenshodo13
How are they going to monitor thousands of petabytes of information at the same time?

It's not that difficult to do actually.

The real rub is The Internet is a public and open network and as such doesn't fall under original amendments. Anything you move or post or do on the intarweb is the same as shouting it across the world.

There is no right to privacy with the intarweb. It's the same as plastering your house with illegal activity, mailing it to everybody in the world and then claiming "but..but..but, my privacy!!"

What is really needed is a constitutional amendment to clear the waters on this form of communication as the constitution was not meant to handle such. Well, actually it was but in those times a packet of information was hand delivered.

As much as I want gubment out of anything, the expectation of privacy on a public network is absurd.

 

[WingZero94]

Those of you speaking out against this are getting scanned with more scrutiny as we speak.....

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: tenshodo13
How are they going to monitor thousands of petabytes of information at the same time?

It's not that difficult to do actually.

The real rub is The Internet is a public and open network and as such doesn't fall under original amendments. Anything you move or post or do on the intarweb is the same as shouting it across the world.

There is no right to privacy with the intarweb. It's the same as plastering your house with illegal activity, mailing it to everybody in the world and then claiming "but..but..but, my privacy!!"

What is really needed is a constitutional amendment to clear the waters on this form of communication as the constitution was not meant to handle such. Well, actually it was but in those times a packet of information was hand delivered.

As much as I want gubment out of anything, the expectation of privacy on a public network is absurd.

What you say IS true. Downloading illegal stuff on the internet is like driving down a street with a mountain of coke visible in the back seat. Its open for everyone to see and you can't exactly claim invasion of pirvacy.

Now that I think about it more, the only thing they can do is look at the stuff you're downloading and nothing else. I don't think theres that much invasion of privacy at all

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: WingZero94
Those of you speaking out against this are getting scanned with more scrutiny as we speak.....

And your post was sent in the clear for anybody that wanted to record everything you did. This is not unconstitutional.

You are free to shout as hard as you want in a public forum without penalty. You are not to expect privacy for shouting in a public forum.

Hence, The Internet is by definition a PUBLIC network. It is not a PRIVATE network.

 

[Eli]

FUCK that.

No, seriously. WTF?

We aren't a free country anymore...

 

[ChaoZ]

I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA and MPAA were behind this.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Originally posted by: Eli
FUCK that.

No, seriously. WTF?

We aren't a free country anymore...

You're obviously not reading the posts above you. The Internet is not a private place. There cannot be an invasion of privacy in a network where everything is public and can be seen by a 17 year old with experiance.

Downloads are done right over a public line. I could probably nab a couple of guys right now by going onto a Download I have for a game, and tracking all the IP's that are seeding or leeching off me. Thats basically what these guys are doing.