FBI Wants to Fine Companies That Refuse to Hand Over Your Online Communications

[marmar]

Get ready, Facebook and Google users: your online communications may be spied on by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) if they get their way. A federal task force is writing a bill that would pressure online companies to enable law enforcement to intercept communications online. The legislation would fine companies who refuse to hand over the communication records of people who use their programs, the Washington Post reports.

The FBI says they need the legislation, a top priority for the law enforcement agency, to pass in order to facilitate work combatting crime and terrorism. Currently, when companies like Facebook resist a law enforcement inquiry, the government backs off because they have no desire to go through a contempt proceeding, according to the Washington Post.

The newspaper gives the details of the proposed legislation: a court would begin by fining firms that don’t comply with wiretap orders--fines that could reach up to tens of thousands of dollars. If the firm still refuses, a court proceeding and more fines would commence. It’s already being criticized, though. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/fbi-wants-fine-companies-refuse-hand-over-your-online-communications

[Mnemosyne]

1. K&R nt

[siligut]

2. The NSA is planning on just taking the information as it travels

Isn't that what the big communications center in Utah is all about?

[NoodleyAppendage]

4. I thought they were already doing it? Echelon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

[siligut]

5. Echelon Extra

But “this is more than just a data center,” says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle—financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications—will be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US. The upshot, according to this official: “Everybody’s a target; everybody with communication is a target.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1

Construction of the $1.2 billion Data Center is scheduled to be completed in October 2013.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705363940/Utahs-15-billion-cyber-security-center-under-way.html

And I gather infinite storage and retrieval capability of collected data is also in the plans. I am not familiar enough with Echelon to know all of the differences.

[RobertEarl]

3. They already grab stuff

They just want to make it all legal and clean.

I am reminded of how before 9 - 11, the feds were intent on going after environmentalists. As environmentalists using message boards we became quite aware of the intent.

Seeing as how all our politicians are talking about how the Russians were able to track the Boston jerks and we couldn't, it will be a short while before the Utah super computer will be filtering every keystroke any of us make.

But I am sure DUers will be left alone. We only post pro-government stuff.