Obama internet plan is to allow higher surveillance

At first, the Obama internet policy for the nation appeared to be a call for internet connection access befitting a first world nation. However, the White House has something else it wants done online. As if the Patriot Act wasn’t enough, the Obama administration and the law enforcement and intelligence agencies are putting together legislation that will expand government accessibility to the telecommunications industry. Should the bill, which is not slated to go before Congress until 2011, pass into regulation, increased access can be granted by mandate to law enforcement and intelligence officials. Washington already has access to a broad array of communications for surveillance purposes, and this will expand that access. Source for this article – Obama Internet policy expands to include greater surveillance by P! ersonal Money Store.

Brand new Obama internet design

A bill will propose more accessibility for wiretap and monitoring purposes for intelligence and law enforcement officials, according to the Brand new York Times. The Obama administration is behind the bill, which is due next year. The bill will mandate that all methods of communication be intended to allow government monitoring. The reason is that some communications, especially those on the Internet, are encrypted and private.

Small business will suffer

Rules tend to favor the businesses that can afford to keep up with them. A large tech firm with a generous engineering staff will hardly be fazed, whereas a little startup could be disadvantaged. Recent bans of the Blackberry due to the way Research In Motion intended it occurred, over exactly this type of issue. The machine keeps emails and other messages encrypted and private, off limits even to the business itself. RIM, along with other tech businesses for instance voice over internet protocol company Skype, would have to re-engineer products to permit for government intervention. Regulation enforcement and intelligence services do rely on monitored communication to catch criminals, and as a result of the decreased access, have seen their capabilities “going dark” to do their jobs.

Loose lips

There are few methods of communication, besides speaking in person, that aren’t subject to domestic monitoring. Granted, Obama has not had a scandal similar to the Bush domestic spying controversies. There are legitimate threats to public safety that could be dealt with by this legislation, and the federal insists it isn’t overstepping its authority by asking for the access. A greater degree of surveillance may seem a good tool for catching criminals in the act, however can very easily be misused.

Citations

NY Times

nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html?pagewanted=1