Subj : Re: Clarification
To   : Todd Henson
From : Joshua Lee
Date : Wed Oct 25 2000 07:59 pm

-=> TODD HENSON wrote to JOSHUA LEE <=-

 TH> How is this possible? In making it easier for the
 TH> government to apprehend "fugitives," meaning
 TH> people who have been charged but not
 TH> convicted of a crime. So, if someone you know --
 TH> or don't know, for that matter -- is on the lam,
 TH> the government would have the power, under
 TH> this legislation, to grab your phone records if it
 TH> suspected that it would help apprehend the
 TH> fugitive. No court order. No notice. No nothing.

Law enforcement has been trying for some time to find ways to relax
the privacy of telephone and other electronic records; more recently
wrt computer and internet activity of course; including the installation
of tracing software into major internet service providers. This is not
the only type of this form of privacy invasion that is going on; if we're
not careful to watch these sorts of things, we might end up loosing
a lot of our privacy; in fact, we already have. In the private sector,
examples are Doubleclick and similar cookie-based ad services, and
internet spyware shareware and adware. (Actually what bugs me about
this sort of thing the most is it's impact on system performance;
they are using my computer's CPU and internet transfers to do
their dirty work; which is why these sorts of ads that are based
upon the sites you've visited slow down the display of internet
sites they're on so much.)

 TH> What's the justification for this? Apparently to
 TH> make it easier for the government to do its job.
 TH> But, to my knowledge, court orders are pretty
 TH> darn easy to come by for those in law
 TH> enforcement playing by the rules.

True, but there's nothing like automation to cut costs; hence the
appeal of a lot of computer monitoring. The NSA is constantly
running out of space to store tapes and other forms of storage
media of things it has recorded; the rate of monitoring is growing
exponentially.

                       JBL

.... What is mind? No matter! What is matter? Never mind! - Homer S.
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