Big Brother Wants Into VoIP At Any Cost

wallaby fly-half writes "An amendment to the CALEA law would make it easier for the government to monitor calls made over VoIP and even temporarily store some packet traffic. Ars Technica reports that the 'bill will put the technology in place to buffer packet streams, and places the job of filtering those streams under government control. We know from the NSA warrantless wiretapping program that the government is not limiting itself to access to under court orders, and the CALEA bill must be considered in light of the capacity it generates.'"

Strange...

[bigtallmofo]

I realize you only posted this comment 4 seconds ago, but I find it strange on Slashdot that you're not modded to +9 SuperGenius yet.

You don't get witty anti-Dubya sarcasm like this just anywhere:

Hell, they'll probably outlaw encrypting your own phone calls, next, because (the flag waving) it's (an eagle poses rampant) in (strains of The Star Bangled Banner) the (In God We Trust) best(the blue angels fly overhead) interests (cascading images of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, etc.) of (Betsy Ross adds another star to her handicraft) America (fanfare of fife and drum) and everybody knows the real patriots don't question any of this.

That's quality stuff! And your clever use of condescending nicknames for George Bush...

Dub's dirty tricks or not

Magnificient! Yes, I'm sure it's only a matter of picoseconds before you'll be at +9 or greater. Congratulations.

The biggest downside is that in just two short years, George Bush will no longer be president and we won't get to hear such cerebral commentaries any longer.

Re:The New Bolshevism

[Tackhead]

> We can safely assume that the lion's share of our empire's surveillance, terrorism, goes unreported; and that the most insidious state must hide from its citizens. Haven't we learned any lessons from the hideous Bolsheviks?

Of course we have! Who do you think's been testing it for us all these years?

The USSR was the alpha test site. We learned that it doesn't work too well in a pen-and-paper world; you end up with something like East Germany's STASI, in which your economy implodes because a third of your population is busy filing reports on the other two thirds of your population... but nobody can actually find the reports to use them for anything.

China is the beta test site. A technologically-advanced state, a mixed economy, and strict information controls. Data storage is too expensive to store everyone's everything, so if you search for something naughty, it just gets blocked. Citizens quickly learn how to circumvent the censorship and/or the logging.

With what we've learned, we're ready to go to full implementation. Search for whatever you like. Talk about whatever you like. Everything gets delivered to you, you're never aware that you've crossed the line until... hang on a sec. There's a knock at my door.

Re:Encryption?

[Kesch]

So once again this will do nothing towards preventing terrorism, but everything to alienate The People.

Oh, ha ha ha ha! You thought they were REALLY trying to stop terrorism. Oh, bwuahaha, that's a good one! I'm in tears. Hey, hey Bob! Come over here and look a this, it's hilarious!

Should this come to pass...

[Apocalypse111]

then I will be setting up a script to make VOIP calls into Saudi Arabia and Iraq at 4am every morning, and have a text-to-speech program start reading off an Arabic or Farsi translation of Dr. Seuss. Let the NSA have fun with that one, 'cause I know I will.

Re:Oke...

[daivzhavue]

Really...isn't that more like 8 words?

Re:Strange...

[QRDeNameland]

I wouldn't be surprised one bit if he suspended that whole 'limited to two terms' thing so he could Continue To Bravely Fight The Terrorists And Ensure Freedom Abroad. Or CTBFTTAEFA for short.

I thought they were going to call it Preserving W's Natural Authority as God for Eternity, or PWNAGE for short.

Re:Strange...

[rainman_bc]

They couldn't even get electronic voting right, and now you think there's something safe about internet voting?

Thanks, I like our system in Canada. Paper based voting. Go in, get a list of names, but an X in the circle. Can't figure out how to put an X into a circle? Your vote doesn't count. It's like a mini IQ test. Too dumb to write an X in the circle? Too dumb to pick a politician too :)