US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search

[FourScore]

EXCERPT FROM RAWSTORY:

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today.

Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

The article, which profiles the 65-year-old former admiral appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2007 to oversee all of America's intelligence agencies, was not published on the New Yorker's Web site. (It can be read here in pdf).

McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity.

"Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the autority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search," author Lawrence Wright pens...


http://rawstory.com/news/2007/US_drafting_plan_to_allow_government_0114.html

[ixion]

1. this crap simply must stop

If We, the People don't say enough is enough, it will never end.

Restore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and get these fascist bastards on a fast boat to the Hague.

[yy4me]

6. What is left for Uncle Sam to check, my underwear drawer?

From the absurd to the more absurd. They might find holes in my briefs, then what?

[Smith_3]

2. Deus Ex anyone? Time for JC Denton to hook up with Daedalus.

[FourScore]

3. Huh? n/t

[Smith_3]

5. Look it up. Bad ass computer game about conspiracies and surveillance.

Reflects the real state of world affairs astonishingly accurately, while still being a suspenseful piece of science fiction. Predicted a terrorist hit on the statue of liberty and coined the phrase "war on terror", over a year before 9/11 even happened. The work of geniuses, imo. Both parts.

[Richard Steele]

4. And, like the Patriot Act, they'll have this plan ready & waiting when the next emergency strikes.nm

[BadgerKid]

7. It's just the beginning, I fear.

It has always bothered me that ${SEARCH_ENGINE_WEBSITE} could on a moment's notice give, or be mandated to turn over, all its user data to the government. I'm not sure there's a way to stop DHS from simply seizing a company to raid it for information.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. 'Pukes doing as much damage as they can while still entrenched in the WH

:mad:

[cascadiance]

9. I think corporations have conditioned us to accept this through employee policies...

... which in effect give them free reign over anything we do online at work too. Many out there these days that didn't grow up with a more private life of times before this probably say to themselves that if I haven't suffered from corporate America spying on me, then Uncle Sam prolly isn't that bad either... This is why we should have fought harder earlier on when corporations weren't given guidelines of what is and isn't private information...

An example of this is when employees of Northwest Airlines were forced to turn over their HOME computers to help Northwest Airlines have "discovery of all data" that would tell them how employees organized their "sickout" in the labor dispute they had.

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/digitaldiscovery/digdisc_library_1.html

I wonder if the employees could successfully petition to see all board members and executives' emails for their lawyers to see how business officials conspired to keep their salaries down, layoff people and take away their benefits.

This is a larger battle, and we need to draw the lines to show people how them exposing their privacy at work HAS hurt them, so that they can get how much they can be hurt also by the government having unmitigated access to their online surfing habits.

[mod mom]

10. I found this @ Muck under comments: McConnell's long hx in data mining:

Note that Mike McConnell has a long history in the data-mining business and in contracting out intelligence to the private sector. He is a former executive of Booz Allen Hamilton, which has been involved in data-mining contracts for the government. Here is one link:

McConnell is a former director of the National Security Agency and the current director of defense programs at Booz Allen—one of the nation’s biggest defense and intelligence contractors. Under his watch, Booz Allen has been deeply involved in some of the most controversial counterterrorism programs run by the Bush administration, including the infamous Total Information Awareness data-mining scheme. McConnell has also been a leading figure in outsourcing U.S. intelligence operations to private industry.

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/1/12/mike_mcconnell_booz_allen_and_the


I wasn't aware of this background.

I had just predicted that McConnell was punking *'s NIE statement with his comment today on water-boarding & torture. I thought perhaps he was seeing thru *, guess I was wrong.

[DCKit]

11. C'mon folks. They're just trying to legalize what they've been doing right along.

What'd you think those special rooms at the various internet hubs were equipped for? They've had full access to nearly every bit transmitted across the internet for the past five years.