{"id":9508,"date":"2012-05-08T07:43:25","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T14:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9508"},"modified":"2012-05-08T07:43:25","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T14:43:25","slug":"us-government-presses-for-backdoor-surveillance-against-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9508","title":{"rendered":"US Government presses for “backdoor” surveillance against citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surveillance State democracy<\/strong>
\n8 May, 2012 – IBNtv<\/p>\n

As the FBI seeks full access to all forms of Internet communication, it is not voters who need to be convinced.<\/p>\n

CNET\u2019s excellent technology reporter, Declan McCullagh, reports on ongoing efforts by the Obama administration to force the Internet industry to provide the U.S. Government with \u201cbackdoor\u201d access to all forms of Internet communication:<\/p>\n

The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance \u2026 That included a scheduled trip this month to the West Coast \u2013 which was subsequently postponed \u2013 to meet with Internet companies\u2019 CEOs and top lawyers \u2026<\/p>\n

The FBI general counsel\u2019s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding,\u201d an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI\u2019s draft legislation told CNET.<\/p>\n

As for the substance of this policy, I wrote about this back in September, 2010, when it first revealed that the Obama administration was preparing legislation to mandate that \u201call services that enable communications \u2013 including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct \u2018peer to peer\u2019 messaging like Skype\u201d \u2013 be designed to ensure government surveillance access.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t about expanding the scope of the government\u2019s legal surveillance powers \u2013 numerous legislative changes since 2001 have already accomplished that quite nicely \u2013 but is about ensuring the government\u2019s physical ability to intrude into all forms of Internet communication.<\/p>\n

What was most amazing to me back when I first wrote about these Obama administration efforts was that a mere six weeks earlier, a major controversy had erupted when Saudi Arabia and the UAE both announced a ban on BlackBerries on the ground that they were physically unable to monitor the communications conducted on those devices. Since Blackberry communication data are sent directly to servers in Canada and the company which operates Blackberry \u2013 Research in Motion \u2013 refused to turn the data over to those governments, \u201cauthorities [in those two tyrannies] decided to ban Blackberry services rather than continue to allow an uncontrolled and unmonitored flow of electronic information within their borders.\u201d As I wrote at the time: \u201cthat\u2019s the core mindset of the Omnipotent Surveillance State: above all else, what is strictly prohibited is the ability of citizens to communicate in private; we can\u2019t have any \u2018uncontrolled and unmonitored flow of electronic information\u2019.\u201d …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Surveillance State democracy 8 May, 2012 – IBNtv As the FBI seeks full access to all forms of Internet communication, it is not voters who need to be convinced. CNET\u2019s excellent technology reporter, Declan McCullagh, reports on ongoing efforts by the Obama administration to force the Internet industry to provide the U.S. Government with \u201cbackdoor\u201d more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[582],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9508"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9510,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions\/9510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}