[Infowarrior] - Internet Wiretapping Proposal Met With Silence

[Richard Forno]

September 28, 2010, 10:49 am
Internet Wiretapping Proposal Met With Silence

By VERNE G. KOPYTOFF
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/internet-wiretapping-proposal-met-with-silence/

An Obama administration plan to make wire tapping the Internet easier for law enforcement and national security agencies was met with silence by online companies Monday.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Research in Motion – never shy about issuing press releases – all declined to talk about what would be a major shift in privacy law.

Next year, the Obama administration intends to ask Congress for new regulations that it says are necessary as more people – and criminals – communicate online rather than the telephone. The rules would require Internet companies to create an easy way for law enforcement and security officials to monitor encrypted e-mails and messaging services like Skype, which allow users to talk “peer to peer.”

The government would still need to get legal approval to intercept and decode messages.

Privacy advocates criticize the plan as a threat to free speech and open to abuse. However, major technology companies, which vociferously defend their privacy records, today declined to weigh in on the proposal – never mind that it could affect their users and require some technical gymnastics to implement.

Only Facebook would comment, if only generally, saying in a statement: “We will examine any proposal when and if it materializes but we can’t comment on something we haven’t seen. Generally, it’s our policy to only comply with valid, legal requests for data.”

Granted, the Obama administration has yet to offer many specifics, making it difficult for the companies to comment in detail. The silence may also be a case of the companies not wanting to antagonize government officials.

Under the proposal, the Internet companies will have to have systems in place that would allow law enforcement to intercept messages if asked to do so by law enforcement. Some companies already have such technology in place, but some do not and have to build such systems after being served.

Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group, said that there are “obvious civil liberty and privacy issues” with the Obama administration plan. Existing law already allows law enforcement to get user information from Internet companies, although it may not get it as quickly as they want.

“The government has to bear the burden of proof for why we need this,” Mr. Tien said. “But they tend to get a pass.”