First they came for Howard Stern....

....and if we're not careful, we'll all find ourselves in the same bureaucratic soup!

Here's an appalling development:


A far-reaching FBI proposal would require all broadband Net providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police.

The FBI's request to the Federal Communications Commission aims to give police ready access to any form of Internet-based communications. If approved as drafted, the proposal could dramatically expand the scope of the agency's wiretap powers, raise costs for cable broadband companies and complicate Internet product development.

Legal experts said the 85-page filing includes language that could be interpreted as forcing companies to build back doors into everything from instant messaging and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) programs to Microsoft's Xbox Live game service. The introduction of new services that did not support a back door for police would be outlawed, and companies would be given 15 months to make sure that existing services comply.

"The importance and the urgency of this task cannot be overstated," says the proposal, which is also backed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration. "The ability of federal, state and local law enforcement to carry out critical electronic surveillance is being compromised today."

Because the eavesdropping scheme has the support of the Bush administration, the FCC is expected to take it very seriously. Last month, FCC Chairman Michael Powell stressed that "law enforcement access to IP-enabled communications is essential" and that police must have "access to communications infrastructure they need to protect our nation."

The request from federal police comes almost a year after representatives from the FBI's Electronic Surveillance Technology Section approached the FCC and asked that broadband providers be required to provide more efficient, standardized surveillance facilities. Such new rules were necessary, the FBI argued, because terrorists could otherwise frustrate legitimate wiretaps by placing phone calls over the Internet.

Anyone who doesn't think the FCC wants power over the Internet should read the above carefully.

And weep.

Particularly appalling is the statement that "the introduction of new services that did not support a back door for police would be outlawed."

The word "services" is not defined, but I am assuming they include ISPs. Which means an end to independent operators of ISPs, an end to confidentiality, and ultimately, an end to the freedom we have enjoyed on the Internet. Of course, there'd be nothing to stop offshore ISPs, unless that too becomes a crime.

"The DEA is behind this," says Glenn Reynolds.

Yeah, and the FBI, and now the FCC. This is the latest incarnation of Admiral Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program.

Americans have fought and died in battle for hundreds of years to preserve our freedom. And now the current generation can watch it dissolve gradually in a sickening brew of bureaucratic alphabet soup, the letters of which are ever-closer to spelling the word "F-A-S-C-I-S-M."

But who wants to read the soup we're in?

posted by Eric on 03.17.04 at 07:43 PM





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Comments

This effort, and the failure of intelligence to uncover any "chatter" preceding Madrid -- suggests that the feds have failed badly in the REAL war against terror -- the offline one.

News reports periodically remind us that Al Qaeda does not communicate openly via Internet or phone; they communicate via personal contact, courier, and possibly coded public declarations. Even if they did communicate electronically, as you note, the plan would have no effect on foreign ISPs and web sites.

What action is being taken offline in the war against terror?

There has been little talk of how little progress is being made in translating millions of handwritten and printed pages of terrorist documents from Arabic into English. Almost nothing is being done to secure the nation's railways. Only select shipping ports have been secured. The borders and shorelines remain wide open. Homeland Security is receiving only token funding.

Meanwhile, we are as friendly as ever with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- source of most of the terrorists. And Iraq has degenerated from a tightly controlled dictatorship into a nest of countless terrorists and militias operating in a lawless land where security and surveillance have become exceedingly difficult.

Mike A.   ·  March 19, 2004 12:34 AM


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