From CNet.com:
CNET has learned the FBI has developed custom “port reader” software to intercept Internet metadata in real time. And, in some cases, it wants to force Internet providers to use the software.
The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies’ internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts.
FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI’s legal position during these discussions is that the software’s real-time interception of metadata is authorized under the Patriot Act.
Attempts by the FBI to install what it internally refers to as “port reader” software, which have not been previously disclosed, were described to CNET in interviews over the last few weeks. One former government official said the software used to be known internally as the “harvesting program.”
Carriers are “extra-cautious” and are resisting installation of the FBI’s port reader software, an industry participant in the discussions said, in part because of the privacy and security risks of unknown surveillance technology operating on an sensitive internal network.
It’s “an interception device by definition,” said the industry participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because court proceedings are sealed. “If magistrates knew more, they would approve less.” It’s unclear whether any carriers have installed port readers, and at least one is actively opposing the installation.
Use your heads, Americans. Any source of privacy you thought you had is, essentially, gone forever — because you cannot put that genie back in the bottle.
Your cellular phone calls are monitored and stored. Your e-mails are monitored and stored. Your terrestrial calls are monitored and stored. Your movements are tracked and traced via OnStar, Sirius and other subscriptive elements in your vehicle. Newer vehicles have “black boxes” similar to those of aircraft (though not yet quite as sophisticated). Insurance companies want you to have a device similar to that of Progressive’s Snapshot installed in your car; now it’s voluntary. Soon it will be mandatory.
You are captured, thousands of times daily, on video and cameras if you live in an urban or suburban territory. Bank on it. In Russia, most vehicles themselves have dashcams. Police agencies have LPR and face recognition systems — I know that because — obviously, to those who read me — I’m a cop.
Every store, every theater, every retail outlet wants you to subscribe to and utilize “their own cards,” so that they can sift you and sort you for your information, then direct-sell you. Every keystroke on your computer can be logged, your phone can be made to listen to you and the RFID chip in your credit card can be stolen.
The more you embrace the digital world, the less privacy you have. Plain and simple. It’s why Russian intelligence agencies are going back to manual typewriters. I hope you don’t think that’s something I made up; it is not.
Disarm Americans, remove their freedoms — and in some cases sell those freedoms back to them — then disable the rest of their tawdry and outdated little niggling Bill of Rights. There’s your Utopian Leftist/Demorat Master Plan. Think: Cloward-Piven.
Some day, this is all going to explode.
This nation is on the cusp of losing itself and its Bill of Rights forever.
And when that explosion comes — well, it won’t be pretty.
BZ
