U.S. Government Wants to Read Your Emails

U.S. Government Wants to Read Your Emails

news.discovery.com

The Obama administration is drawing up legislation to make it easier for intelligence services to eavesdrop on the Internet, including email exchanges and social networks, The New York Times said Monday.

The White House intends to submit a bill before Congress next year that would require all online services that enable communications to be technically capable of complying with a wiretap order, including being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages, the paper reported.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is huge and terrifying news! This bill only has one purpose: A massive database of internet users with everything they visit or post on the the internet. ATS will have to comply too and let the govt place their eavesdropping software on their systems. And we, as consparcy theorists, are at risk. If this bill passes, the quality of content in such sites will plummet as people may be afraid to share what they know.

news.discovery.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I agree with you, this is scary. Though I'm surprised it hasn't happened already yet.
I grin thinking about how shocked they are going to be with websites such as ATS...and the fact that we probably know more than they think we do.

Have fun.. Hope the spooks have good translators.. Mine are all in chinese and vietnamese

NOTHING you put on the Internet is secure anyway. It never has been. If this is "scary" to you, you should have been scared all along. This is not new. Criminals are communicating over the Internet. The government doesn't want to read YOUR emails, unless, of course, you're plotting something illegal.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
The government doesn't want to read YOUR emails, unless, of course, you're plotting something illegal.

I wanna' hear you say that when a Neo-con Republican is POTUS.

Actually, I agree with this statement.
They have too many other things to do with their time then read each email we send.
It would be a huge waste of time, effort, energy, resources ....
oh wait .. the gov't always does that .. perhaps they will!
Just kidding. I'm sure it isn't feasible nor possible.

Originally posted by Expat888
Have fun.. Hope the spooks have good translators.. Mine are all in chinese and vietnamese

You get a star for making me laugh so hard this morning. Now I am picturing in your head there is a billion dollar intelligence agency full of people standing around, holding their heads in shock "These are not in English, now what do we do?????"

LOL

Originally posted by TheOracle

U.S. Government Wants to Read Your Emails

news.discovery.com

The Obama administration is drawing up legislation to make it easier for intelligence services to eavesdrop on the Internet, including email exchanges and social networks, The New York Times said Monday.

The White House intends to submit a bill before Congress next year that would require all online services that enable communications to be technically capable of complying with a wiretap order, including being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages, the paper reported.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This has BEEN happening. It's just a smoke screen to make you think that it wasn't...

While I agree that the net is not secure, I worry about people being labeled terrorist simply due to wanting to be aware of an attack method. For example, If I was curious about the difference between a nuclear and electronic emp, and started searching for the term, I could end up on a watch list. Perhaps I want to protect my electronics from damage, but the gubment sees something sinister.

This kind of thing is another loss of rights and privacy. Simple as that.

It is a federal offense to mess with snail mail. Now tell me why e-mail should be different?
This should also allow me to read the gubments mail as well as anyone else.

This is about our privacy rights, and our right to have a conversation without the government "spying on us".
I understand the terror angle of this, and I still think this is a bad thing.

reply to post by TheOracle


I agree with one other poster who said that this wouldn't come into play for everyone as it would be way too time consuming and probably impossible to go through all mail and texts sent in one hour let alone one day.... no matter how many people would be on the job or how many a computer is set up to analyse and read.... na, would be impossible.

What they could do however is to track certain people they've been watching in chatrooms... get hold of their IP's and then watch their mails... this would be the only feasible way to watching criminal activity or terrorism plans.

When it was found out that the Bush administration was recording every electronic transmission in the country there was barely a peep about it. I did not really care for myself but I have the same concern still that I had when this actually started happening several years before anyone knew who Obama was.
I am more inclined to believe that this type of thing would be used to blackmail, frame, data mine, etc. on political opponents. I worry about the people in power listening and recording each other's private conversations. Left or right, when they get the opportunity to play that kind of chess with each other, we all lose.

I despise that government is intruding upon my e-privacy, war on terror or no. It's not in the spirit of liberty or of this country.

Having said that, and before the usual suspects show up parroting phrases like "Obamatrons" and saying that I worship the POTUS as my "messiah", I want to point out what others already have...

This monstrosity of a problem did not begin with Obama! It may be his barbecue right this moment, but he didn't light the grill and he didn't throw the meat on the fire.

The sooner we wake up and stop polarizing ourselves into these false paradigms and labels, the sooner we'll all have a chance at putting a stop to this nonsense. As long as we're content to sit and point the finger at each other... Well then that's about all we're going to accomplish because a house, divided, cannot stand.

My understanding the US government doesn't do it because it's illegal for them to do so. They hire the Canadians and English to do it to get around the law

reply to post by TheOracle


I would love to know how the government is going to do this? I mean, in reality, there are billions of emails sent every few minutes, all over the world. there are not enough people, let alone people with security clearance, to read all of these. They will probably use a CRAY to sift through, looking for those 300 magic words, and flag the ones that have a word or two. No possible way to actually read all of them. Use a little logic once in awhile, will ya?

Originally posted by FlyersFan
I wanna' hear you say that when a Neo-con Republican is POTUS.

What Bush did was illegal. It was WARRANTLESS wiretapping that was a problem. This new proposal requires a legal order to eavesdrop. That's a huge difference.

Source

The bill, which hasn't yet been released, would require companies that provide encrypted communications to be able to break into those coded signals upon receiving a legal wiretapping order
...
Government officials quoted by the Times argued that the proposal would merely preserve their current powers, rather than grant new ones. Law enforcement officials have long had the ability to record or listen in on traditional phone calls.

I am a security advocate, but anyone who thinks the Internet has EVER been secure is just naive.

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
The government doesn't want to read YOUR emails, unless, of course, you're plotting something illegal.

I wanna' hear you say that when a Neo-con Republican is POTUS.

Actually, I agree with this statement.
They have too many other things to do with their time then read each email we send.
It would be a huge waste of time, effort, energy, resources ....
oh wait .. the gov't always does that .. perhaps they will!

Just kidding. I'm sure it isn't feasible nor possible.

Meh, they are all puppet presidents. Since Kennedy, anyway.
No matter who's in office the wars continue and the government power increases.
If we kept the last moron in the White House, we could have saved 150 mil on the Inaguration alone not to mention all the wasted money on the charade they like to call "Elections".

reply to post by autowrench


You're right... i was going to add to my post up above that there would probably be some computer which would pick up on certain words being used in different languages and then it would be those groups of people being monitored....

i suspect they do something like this already when they suspect something.... phone tapping has been done a long time before the internet!!

They already do.....read emails.

They will want to put cameras in our own homes, and we will plead for it...
They will want to put implant microchips in our heads to monitor our thoughts, and we will get on our knees and beg them for it...
They will put chemicals in our tap water to destroy our mi... Oh wait...

I wonder: does the government have the authority to open your postal mail and read it? Isn't that a Federal offense?