{"id":37040,"date":"2012-05-08T20:46:45","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T20:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-fbi-is-asking-internet-companies-not-to-oppose\/"},"modified":"2012-05-08T20:46:45","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T20:46:45","slug":"the-fbi-is-asking-internet-companies-not-to-oppose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-fbi-is-asking-internet-companies-not-to-oppose\/","title":{"rendered":"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. . . . 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.\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."},"content":{"rendered":"

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. . . . 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.\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.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

wilwheaton<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Moreover, for anyone who defends the Obama administration here and insists that the U.S. Government simply must have access to all forms of human communication: does that also apply to in-person communication? Should home and apartment builders be required to install monitors in every room they build to ensure that the Government can surveil all human communications in order to prevent threats to national security and public safety? I believe someone once wrote a book about where this mindset inevitably leads. The very idea that no human communication should ever be allowed to take place beyond the reach of the Government is definitive authoritarianism<\/strong>, which is why Saudi Arabia and the UAE \u2014 and their American patron-ally \u2014 have so vigorously embraced it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Greenwald points out that the FBI does not need this, because they can go to a judge, get a warrant, and use traditional surveillance when it\u2019s necessary. \u201cBut what about encryption?!\u201d Well:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

the problem cited by the FBI to justify this new power is a\u00a0total pretext<\/a>: \u201cinvestigators encountered encrypted communications only one time during 2009\u2032s wiretaps\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>and, even then, \u201cthe state investigators told the court that the encryption did not prevent them from getting the plain text of the messages.\u201d As usual, fear-mongering over national security and other threats is the instrument to justify massive new surveillance powers that will extend far beyond their claimed function.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m profoundly disappointed in the Obama administration\u2019s record on civil rights and privacy. I expected better from a president who is a Constitutional law scholar.<\/p>\n

tl;dr:\u00a0The very idea that no human communication should ever be allowed to take place beyond the reach of the Government is definitive authoritarianism<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. . . . 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[1539],"class_list":["post-37040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","tag-emergent-digital-practices","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-9Dq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}