FBI Pursuing Real-Time Gmail Spying Powers as 'Top Priority' for 2013

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/345-justice/16676-fbi-pursuing-real-time-gmail-spying-powers-as-top-priority-for-2013-

espite the pervasiveness of law enforcement surveillance of digital communication, the FBI still has a difficult time monitoring Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox in real time. But that may change soon, because the bureau says it has made gaining more powers to wiretap all forms of Internet conversation and cloud storage a "top priority" this year.

Last week, during a talk for the American Bar Association in Washington, D.C., FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann discussed some of the pressing surveillance and national security issues facing the bureau. He gave a few updates on the FBI's efforts to address what it calls the "going dark" problem - how the rise in popularity of email and social networks has stifled its ability to monitor communications as they are being transmitted. It's no secret that under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the feds can easily obtain archive copies of emails. When it comes to spying on emails or Gchat in real time, however, it's a different story.

That's because a 1994 surveillance law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act only allows the government to force Internet providers and phone companies to install surveillance equipment within their networks. But it doesn't cover email, cloud services, or online chat providers like Skype. Weissmann said that the FBI wants the power to mandate real-time surveillance of everything from Dropbox and online games ("the chat feature in Scrabble&quot to Gmail and Google Voice. "Those communications are being used for criminal conversations," he said.

[Quantess]

1. Taxpayer dollars going toward sifting through gossip and junk mail.

Looking for that elusive criminal information. Sounds like a huge waste of money and resources.

[pipoman]

2. How about the FBI quit saying, "we don't have the time of manpower" to

actually investigate real crime, in real time?

Every week thousands of people call the FBI and say, 'Hey! I'm a felon who is actively, in real time, right this minute, trying to unlawfully buy a gun', yet of those thousands of bonafide, real time alerts, less than 5% of these felons, who have committed a criminal act in simply trying to buy a gun, are ever even investigated. Why? Because the FBI doesn't have the time or manpower to pursue these people. Further less than 20% of felons who slip through the NICS cracks and are allowed to purchase a gun, and it is later discovered, are ever visited by law enforcement to retrieve the unlawfully obtained firearm. Why? Because the FBI doesn't have the time or the manpower to pursue these people.

Why isn't the FBI investigating banksters who have plundered the nations economy and stolen millions from grandma's retirement account? Why because the FBI doesn't have the time or the manpower.

Now tell us again why the FBI needs to be investigating crimes they don't even know exist with expensive equipment and manpower, pouring through volumes of junk mail and love notes to granny? FFS. We are incubating a monster which will make the KGB of the 1980's look like the keystone cops..