Two alarming new developments in the privacy arena are exposing the Obama administration as no better than Bu$hCo when it comes to protecting the privacy of Americans.
First, the administration is preparing to argue in a case before the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals that Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures do not apply to telco logs of the locations of cell-phone users. If fact, the FBI and local law enforcement agencies have been abusing such records for years, obtaining them merely by asking providers without a warrant and sometimes without probable cause.
Second, federal law enforcement agencies are are pushing for the creation of private “backdoor” interfaces directly into the internal servers of major Internet service providers (ISPs). The stated reason for this new intrusion into private communications is to speed up the process for legally obtaining data when a warrant is presented to an ISP. However, privacy advocates have noted that 1) Federal agencies already abuse existing interfaces by frequently presenting ISPs with “informal” requests for the same information, and so there should be no expectation that a more functional interface would not also be abused, and 2) That a common, consolidated, legally required, interface—implemented by all major ISPs—would present an obvious target for criminal organizations and thus would constitute a terrible risk to the private communications of ordinary citizens.
Hey, I’ve got nothing to hide. Yes federal government, I spend my workday surfing for pictures of naked ladies. Go to hell.
Hello Feds, I spend my days looking for ways to make you look foolish, not as though you any help from me on that front, but it’s fun to do it anyway.
This is all Dick Cheney’s fault. If he hadn’t been sos critical of President Obama’s handling of the war on “terror”, Barack might not feel the need to be tougher than the previous adminstration.
Fuck that nonsense! He should be a man of principle and stand by the fucking constitution that he swore to uphold and defend.
Randal – Was that you we saw on the Australian financial news?
I guess those of us who are trying to make the world a better place need the spooks to know what we are thinking.
We should be making it as easy as possible for them because, let’s face it, they aren’t too bright! Look at Iraq and the WMDs for example.