Tomorrow the FBI will be able to invade everyone's internet.

I served on a grand jury some months back and we had a steady stream of these kinds of cases.

In most, if not all, of these cases, the perpetrator had carried on an illegal chat room exchange with a person he thought to be a minor and law enforcement wanted access to the ISP's records for the purposes of getting an indictment.

As far as I know, there is no mechanism by which everyone's internet activities can be readily monitored without a warrant, let alone the manpower needed to just hang out looking for people who might break the law.

If you don't make a spectacle of yourself in a chat room by being obscene with those who identify themselves as minors then I don't think you have anything to worry about.

hey, here's a thought! maybe the FBI can nail the criminals in the white house with their new tapping powers!

uhhhh hello?!?! am i the only crazy guy here who smells "NWO Agenda"!??! LOL well i do!!! and this is an invasion of privacy. I am all for it to capture criminals but on a nationwide scale??? I think not, and with alot of things going on at once with what their monitoring for (terrorism, school shootings/planning, illegal downloading, pedophiles, etc.) it can be real easy to be branded as doing those activities when you dont do them. I feel uncomfortable even more that the US Gov is doing this an enacting it without alerting the general population to some extent. Even a subtle one would be nice for this action. Imma go anarchist!! lol JK Not that far, but i feel for it now. (note the sarcasm, i dont wanna be flamed!!) SOOOO That me 2 cents there.

"its okay cause i dont do anything illegal on the net"


Yet.........all you need is a sedition law. If i was an American i would be watching all the sneaky bills being passed in from now.

Originally posted by jarheadjock
uhhhh hello?!?! am i the only crazy guy here who smells "NWO Agenda"!??! LOL well i do!!! and this is an invasion of privacy. I am all for it to capture criminals but on a nationwide scale??? I think not, and with alot of things going on at once with what their monitoring for (terrorism, school shootings/planning, illegal downloading, pedophiles, etc.) it can be real easy to be branded as doing those activities when you dont do them. I feel uncomfortable even more that the US Gov is doing this an enacting it without alerting the general population to some extent. Even a subtle one would be nice for this action. Imma go anarchist!! lol JK Not that far, but i feel for it now. (note the sarcasm, i dont wanna be flamed!!) SOOOO That me 2 cents there.

Oh yeah I know- I just found out about this. Thats why I'm upset. And don't worry I won't flame you.

Originally posted by jarheadjock
uhhhh hello?!?! am i the only crazy guy here who smells "NWO Agenda"!??! LOL well i do!!! and this is an invasion of privacy. I am all for it to capture criminals but on a nationwide scale??? I think not, and with alot of things going on at once with what their monitoring for (terrorism, school shootings/planning, illegal downloading, pedophiles, etc.) it can be real easy to be branded as doing those activities when you dont do them. I feel uncomfortable even more that the US Gov is doing this an enacting it without alerting the general population to some extent. Even a subtle one would be nice for this action. Imma go anarchist!! lol JK Not that far, but i feel for it now. (note the sarcasm, i dont wanna be flamed!!) SOOOO That me 2 cents there.

please step away from the keyboard, and put the mouse down SLOWLY. Your paranoid rant has been detected by our BIG BERTHA black boxes and agents will be round to arrest you shortly. While you wait, why don't you check out our great deals on the new FBI website, we are doing a special on orange jump suits.........This message is brought to you in association with diet coke.

Cause for worry? Sure. New interpretations expanding powers makes me wonder about new interpretations of expanded fefinitions of crimes.
Fact is, the military built the internet, and almost certainly has all kinds of back doors, proably CIA and NSA acess, etc. Has been open to the PTB from day one. This is not the beginning of any surveillance age, just the cops being given a key as well to do their work, which so far doen't include making a file on me, I hope. Whatever. You can't get all panicked, it does no good.

Are people behind the times or something, your ISP has been logging information about you for ages, this whole stipulation of making it easier for the feds to 'tap' your connection just means that new switches have to be installed with mirror ports which transmit all the traffic through that switch out onto a single port, usually used by technicians to analyze traffic when troubleshooting network problems. In fact a lot of service providers probably already had the capability and merely had to file the paperwork.

For those freaking out just get a Wireless for Dummies book and a laptop and you no longer have to worry about the feds sniffing your traffic since you won't be using a connection in your name anymore. The techniques and methods are out there to make the life of someone trying to track an online identity down very difficult, so perhaps its time for the people of ATS to get to reading and educating themselves on such things.

In hindsight one expects nothing to be really wrong if they always did whats right to protect us, however a quote from the wired article states all my fears.

That's wrong, of course. Making surveillance easier and faster gives law enforcement agencies of all stripes more reason to eschew old-fashioned police work in favor of spying. The telephone CALEA compliance deadline was in 2002, and since then the amount of court-ordered surveillance has nearly doubled from 2,586 applications granted that year, to 4,015 orders in 2006.

[edit on 14-5-2007 by Revelmonk]

What happens if I visit Hightimes to check out nice fat bud pics? Will they raid my house now thinking I am Pablo Escobar?


This is on of the things that is wrong Lex.

Looks like this deadline is a bit more focused , Revelmonk, than what you'd have us believe, tho.
If I'm reading correctly,it applies only to VOIP

At the request of the FBI, the Federal Communications Commission is soon expected to require companies that provide certain kinds of Internet phone calls to enable law enforcement to conduct wiretapping, given court approval.

www.freepress.net...

I think this is more disturbing, personally, tho.

But it appears from its legal maneuvers that the FBI may also want to find a way to tap peer-to-peer calls, the ones that bypass the telephone system. And the FCC’s analysis of the FBI request suggests it might go along with a move to require wiretapping on any new Internet communications system.

Originally posted by Lexion
And, since I do nothing illegal on the internet, I should be worried ?

Why ?

Pondering,
Lex

The point is that we lose more and more freedom everyday . The fact
that neither of us do anything wrong is moot . I think that was the point .
But ive been wrong before !

Originally posted by Cale, LoganWhy do we keep letting this crap happen?

We keep letting this happen because all we do is sit in here and talk about it... No one is brave enough to even start a petition... So get used to it and toss your rights out the window...

Another thread which has the possibility of the 'if I do nothing wrong...' debate.

I spent a good long while on another thread with the same argument so I will just throw it out there again:

The gradual increase in surveillance is done purposefully. It is true, they will not have a staff watching every single transaction/communication/action on the net. It is, however, one more step in the wrong direction.

It is individuals who say "But I am not a criminal, only criminals should be worried or affected" that allow this sort of gradual privacy invasion to happen. The majority of our country will hear 'used to help catch potential terrorists' and allow it to happen with no recourse.

It is done gradually and with words like terrorism and criminal for a reason. It is done so we can sit back and allow any discomfort we may feel to subside. We give it away.

In short: If you give an inch, they can take a mile.

Originally posted by Leyla

Originally posted by hikix
This topic should be alot more popular then it is, this is the first time ive geard about this. Should i be concerned about getting heavily fined for downloading music????

Are you paying for the service? I agree flag away here!

Cale you don't get it, this is clearly a invasion of privacy. Would you want someone eves dropping on you during a purchase online or something? Or even talking to a friend?

[edit on 5/14/2007 by Leyla]

I'm sorry Leyla. I think you must have misunderstood me. I am TOTALLY against this crap, just for the record. Peace

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott


As far as I know, there is no mechanism by which everyone's internet activities can be readily monitored without a warrant, let alone the manpower needed to just hang out looking for people who might break the law.

Chicken Little to Grady. Let the kids have fun the sky is falling even though evidence says otherwise. Sure they are watching but if you are doing nothing wrong what are you worried about?

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by Cale, LoganWhy do we keep letting this crap happen?

We keep letting this happen because all we do is sit in here and talk about it... No one is brave enough to even start a petition... So get used to it and toss your rights out the window...

I'd be brave enough to start one, just not sure how to go about it. Any advise would be awesome. We US citizens must stop this before it spirals further out of hand.

I agree with Leyla 100%. This is insane. Our rights are disentigrating in front of our very eyes. I weep for Generation Me.

Yep, just another step..

What are they going to do next? Tap all of our telephones? seems like it would be the next logical step in the equation.

sad no one is ever gonna do anything about it tho, my self included

oh well. what can you do? not a whole lot really..

i think its horrible and things are going to be getting worse and worse but all we can do it stay positive about it and apreciate the finer things in life.. not preachin just statin my opinion

Originally posted by enjoies05
But you should not do illegal things no matter if the government is watching you or not.

Its not a question about doing anything illegal... You can be performing a search for something perfectly innocent and end up linked to a site that ISN'T innocent... By the time you realize this isn't what you were looking for, its TOO LATE because THEY already have your IP address visiting the site...

Lets say you were interested in Atomic Energy.... well you will find sites that talk about atomic bombs... so you are obviously a terrorist...

You are interested in working on Hydrogen Fuel cells... well they need sulfur, a common chemical that used to be found in all kid's chemistry sets... but if you look for that online, well in most states its illegal to own, afterall its also an ingredient in gunpowder... and illegal fireworks... so you must be thinking of making bombs... so you are obviously a terrorist...

And try having a chemistry setup in your garage... the average cop drives by and spots you experimenting... well you most certainly MUST be running a Meth lab....

I did a search a while back for St Anne's College... I got a porn site on disciplining little girls... what I was looking for was the Canadian Gaelic college...(seems this has been resolved now I just checked)

Our Medieval Guild uses hemp rope in rope making demos... try doing a search for that these days....

Anyone who makes a statement like "If your not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear..." is basically a complacent ignorant fool or works for the government.

One day we will all wake up and wonder what happened to the freedom our soldiers died for all these years...

Wake up America, before its to late

[edit on 14-5-2007 by zorgon]