| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
| Locked on 11/20/2012 8:27:45 AM PST by Sidebar Moderator, reason: |
Posted on 11/20/2012 7:41:03 AM PST by yoe
A Senate proposal (touted) as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.
CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.
Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
I guess if you want any privacy you should use the USPS.
Everyone talked about how this could/would happen when the Patriot Act was introduced..
Email is not a secure medium, and trying to pretend that it is is foolish.
Passing laws to restrict the ability of third parties from reading email makes as much sense as passing laws to keep the rest of the neighborhood from listening in while you the guy next door yell at each other from your respective back porches.
Email is a party line that anyone can listen in on. If you don’t want everyone to hear, encrypt it.
Who cares? If they read my FB postings, they know.
can this be used to find out what the EPA is up to ?
Congress demands EPA’s secret email accounts
Claim: EPA Head Used Secret Email to Hide Documents
Only the deceit is transparent
House investigates EPA emails, as agency says administrators have two accounts
House GOP: Obama officials using secret emails to avoid oversight
Welcome to the New Amerika Comrades...
Just use code words. My family has been doing it for years. The volume of email traffic is so much that they would have to use programs that key in on certain words or phrases. They would then need a human to cipher thru all the garbage.
I will be arrested for being The Least Interesting Man In The World.
Invest in a secure certificate for your email, and you can encrypt your communications. I setup a basic email relay on some cheap home computer equipment and use a software certificate I purchased from Entrust for $20. In order to read my email, you have to have the proper hash key on the other end or be the certified recipient of the email. Since I don’t send much email, it doesn’t matter, but the peace of mind is worth it.
Purchase a TPM module for your existing computer or buy one with it already installed (pretty standard in newer stuff), and you can encrypt your thumb drives and local disks to prevent anyone from accessing it without a secure password.
I use multi-factor encryption/authentication for all of my stuff. If the FBI, CIA, or local law enforcement wanted to see what’s on my computers, they’d need my 31 character, 156 bit password or have a supercomputer powerful enough to crack 2048 bit encryption. Something tells me they won’t waste their time.
Sarin, plutonium, Pentagon, White House, bin Laden.
Oops, this is the Obama administration. New suspect words must be used:
Freedom, liberty, second amendment, Constitution, birth certificate, America.
My guess is a lot of people care. Not everyone uses Facebook, nor do they want the government reading their email.
The ever increasing noose is tightened around our necks.
Nice knowing you America.
It was a facetious comment. My point is that what I put on FB is much more damming than any of my emails, if the gov. is interested.
Use a 128 keyword to encrypt and maybe their great grand kids might crack it, or use what’s called “a one time pad” or to really play with whatever minds they have, just type gibberish with one or two key words in the clear to have them pull it.
Gotcha. Sometimes it’s hard to tell in the written word. :)
“Everyone talked about how this could/would happen when the Patriot Act was introduced.”
Not quite everyone. Republican statists assured everyone that it couldn’t happen here.
Both parties are accomplices in the embezzlement of American liberty.
I know. But I do think it’s ridiculous how much info the gov. can get on us without a warrant. I guess we can thank the Patriot Act for that.
“Just use code words.”
Navajo code words, of course!
http://www.navajocodetalkers.org/
(Actually, I’d go for a more obscure language.
“It is estimated that 6,809 “living” languages exist in the world today, but 90% of them are spoken by fewer than 100,000 people.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_language
I’d also pick a decoy language and send, from an autonomous, very remote server, messages in that language sprinkled with words & phrases designed to trip the NSA alarms.
Just to yank someone’s chain, of course. Mix in a few Arabic or Farsi phrases as Red Herrings.
;-)
(oooooh, I’m getting WAY too much enjoyment out of devious planning!)
LOL, that is a good one. You may get a knock on your door from the guys with the dark sunglasses and black suits though.
The Government already captures & stores all of our emails, texts, phone calls & electronic purchases with plans to increase their capabilities --
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
Most conservatives gave Bush a free pass on this. Now, most liberals are doing the same.
Completely unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
If a government agency wants to read my private email, search my house, attach tracking devices to my car, etc., get a warrant! It’s really that simple, and I have no problem whatsoever submitting to legal (constitutional) searches.
You’d think liberals would be up in arms over this, too!
Remember when he FBI was unlawfully obtaining and then reading the list of library books Americans had taken out and were reading? It was not long afterward that the US congress made it legal to obtain this and much more private information about Americans!
If you break into this Country, are here illegally, law enforcement are NOT allowed to ask or acquire any private information about you, that would be profiling and it is prohibited.
If you are an American, white, male, you have no constitutional protections, just ask Eric Holder, he proclaimed that he would not prosecute any blacks for hate crimes against whites, sine those laws do not protect whites, only minorities, e.g. blacks!
Welcome to Amerika! Fascist States of America
I think it goes back to the Antiterrorism Act of 1993, the bill that patriot is based on. Many of the problems with teh Republican-passed Patriot Act were in the Democrat-passed AT Act 93, but you know how things get reported.
Liberals and conservatives both have given the Feds unlimited power to do this for years.
There is ZERO difference between the two parties on issues such as these.
While you are correct in your cognizance of the electronic facts, there is a BIG difference between "third parties" and the police reading your communications for purposes of surveillance or arrest.
Your penance is to READ the Fourth Amendment twenty times. Here you go:
What’s the big deal? If you’re not doing anything wrong, what are you afraid of? /s
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.