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Senate OKs FBI Internet Spying:"they have increased Big Brother in this country



I promise not to send peripherals, but in the uncharted waters since last
Tuesday I thought this predictable piece was relevant. f


"Maybe the Senate wants to just go ahead and adopt new abilities to
wiretap our citizens," Leahy said. "Maybe they want to adopt new
abilities to go into people's computers. Maybe that will make us feel
safer. Maybe. And maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little
bit less safe. Maybe they have increased Big Brother in this country."
--Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
=============================================================  
Senate OKs FBI Internet Spying
By Declan McCullagh
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46852,00.html

WASHINGTON -- FBI agents soon may be able to spy on Internet users
legally without a court order.

On Thursday evening, two days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S.
history, the Senate approved the "Combating Terrorism Act of 2001,"
which enhances police wiretap powers and permits monitoring in more
situations.

The measure, proposed by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Dianne Feinstein
(D-California), says any U.S. attorney or state attorney general can
order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system.
Previously, there were stiffer restrictions on Carnivore and other
Internet surveillance techniques.

Its bipartisan sponsors argue that such laws are necessary to thwart
terrorism. "It is essential that we give our law enforcement
authorities every possible tool to search out and bring to justice
those individuals who have brought such indiscriminate death into our
backyard," Hatch said during the debate on the Senate floor.

Thursday's vote comes as the nation's capital is reeling from the
catastrophes at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and
politicians are vowing to do whatever is necessary to preserve the
safety of Americans.

This week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) called for restrictions
on privacy-protecting encryption products, and Carnivore's use appears
on the rise. In England, government officials have asked phone
companies and Internet providers to collect and record all their
users' communications -- in case the massive accumulation of data
might yield clues about Tuesday's terrorist attacks.

Under the Combating Terrorism Act, prosecutors could authorize
surveillance for 48-hour periods without a judge's approval.

Warrantless surveillance appears to be limited to the addresses of
websites visited, the names and addresses of e-mail correspondents,
and so on, and is not intended to include the contents of
communications. But the legislation would cover URLs, which include
information such as what Web pages you're visiting and what terms you
type in when visiting search engines.

Circumstances that don't require court orders include an "immediate
threat to the national security interests of the United States, (an)
immediate threat to public health or safety or an attack on the
integrity or availability of a protected computer." That covers most
computer hacking offenses.

During Thursday's floor debate, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), head
of the Judiciary committee, suggested that the bill went far beyond
merely thwarting terrorism and could endanger Americans' privacy. He
also said he had a chance to read the Combating Terrorism Act just 30
minutes before the floor debate began.
"Maybe the Senate wants to just go ahead and adopt new abilities to
wiretap our citizens," Leahy said. "Maybe they want to adopt new
abilities to go into people's computers. Maybe that will make us feel
safer. Maybe. And maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little
bit less safe. Maybe they have increased Big Brother in this country."

By voice vote, the Senate attached the Combating Terrorism Act to an
annual spending bill that funds the Commerce, Justice and State
departments for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, then unanimously
approved it. Since the House has not reviewed this version of the
appropriations bill, a conference committee will be created to work
out the differences.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), one of the co-sponsors, said the Combating
Terrorism Act would give former FBI Director Louis Freeh what he had
lobbied for years ago: "These are the kinds of things that law
enforcement has asked us for. This combination is relatively modest in
comparison with the kind of terrorist attack we have just suffered."

"Experts in terrorism have been telling us for a long time and the
director of the FBI has been telling us (to make) a few changes in the
law that make it easier for our law enforcement people to do their
job," Kyl said.

It's unclear what day-to-day effects the Combating Terrorism Act would
have on prosecutors and Internet users. Some Carnivore installations
apparently already take place under emergency wiretap authority, and
some civil liberties experts say part of this measure would give that
practice stronger legal footing.

"One of the key issues that have surrounded the use of Carnivore is
being addressed by the Senate in a late-night session during a
national emergency," says David Sobel, general counsel of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center.

A source close to the Senate Judiciary committee pointed out that the
wording of the Combating Terrorism Act is so loose -- the
no-court-order-required language covers "routing" and "addressing"
data -- that it's unclear what its drafters intended. The Justice
Department had requested similar legislation last year.

"Nobody really knows what routing and addressing information is.... If
you're putting in addressing information and routing information, you
may not just get (From: lines of e-mail messages), you might also get
content," the source said.

The Combating Terrorism Act also expands the list of criminal offenses
for which traditional, court-ordered wiretaps can be sought to
explicitly include terrorism and computer hacking.

Other portions include assessing how prepared the National Guard is to
respond to weapons of mass destruction, handing the CIA more
flexibility in recruiting informants and improving the storage of U.S.
"biological pathogens."
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