Wiretapping routers

Sat Aug 5 06:59:30 PDT 2006

On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, Guy B. Purcell wrote:

> A co-worker just sent me this link <http://www.oreillynet.com/ 
> sysadmin/blog/2006/07/now_what_does_the_fbi_want.html>.  Will it never end?! 
> Well, maybe this will help push through more global adoption of full 
> end-to-end encryption technology, but that won't help the low-level routing & 
> ICMP traffic, of course.  Geez.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the FBI knew that the Senate
would receive pressure to ratify the Cybercrime Treaty and that they
will now be enforcing every other country's ridiculous net laws as
well as the bad ones our own congresscritters pass?

<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004864.php>

"August 03, 2006

[Update: The Cybercrime Treaty was ratified by the Senate late last
night. The U.S. will now have to comply to requests for assistance
from fifteen countries, and growing.]

The Convention on Cybercrime is a sweeping treaty that has been
waiting in the wings of the Senate for nearly three years. Now the
administration is putting pressure on the Senate to ratify it in the
next two days. If it does, it would mean the U.S. would enforce not
just our own, but the rest of the world's bad Net laws. Call your
Senator now, and ask them to hold its ratification.

The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other
countries' "cybercrime" laws - even if the act being prosecuted is not
illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws
limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the
identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications
on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to
obey other jurisdiction's requests to log their users. behavior
without due process, or compensation.

The treaty came into force last year on the international front, but
not in the US, where it needs to be ratified by Congress first. So
far, ratification has been blocked thanks to a "hold" placed by
conservative lawmakers. But Republican senators this week are now
being heavily pressured by the administration to drop their
objections, and let it fly.

Ratifying the Cybercrime treaty would introduce not just one bad
Internet law into America's lawbooks, but invite the enforcement of
all the world's worst Internet laws. Call your senators now, and tell
them to hold this invasive treaty at bay."

I guess this will be the real test of whether our new Supreme court
justices are mouthpieces for the current administration or true
Constitutionalists.

=Nadine=