An interagency task force of Obama administration officials is progressing on a plan to develop new legislation to submit to Congress early next year that expands the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Andrew Noyes, Facebook's public policy manager confirmed that F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller has visited Facebook and presumably other internet companies in Silicon Valley.
Law enforement officials want the 1994 law to also cover Internet companies because people increasingly communicate online. The law requires phone and broadband network access providers like Verizon and Comcast to make sure they can immediately comply when presented with a court wiretapping order.
Under the proposal, firms would have to design systems to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages. Services based overseas would have to route communication through a server on United States soil where they could be wiretapped.
The Commerce Department and State Department are questioning whether the proposed law would inhibit innovation. Among many other concerns, is whether repressive regimes might attempt to harness these same capabilities to identify political dissidents?
Comments from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other advocacy groups are anticipated relating to what protections if any could balance or outweigh a justifiable concern for what seems a continuing infringment of fundamental constitutional freedoms.
Source article from New York Times, November 16, 2010 by Charlie Savage.
A Google official declined to comment.
ReplyDeleteMr. Mueller and the F.B.I.’s general counsel, Valerie Caproni, were scheduled to meet with senior managers of several major companies, including Google and Facebook, according to several people familiar with the discussions.
ReplyDeleteShould Internet sites like Facebook be censored if they violate the "moral code," as determined by the country's government?
ReplyDeleteRead more: http://techland.com/2010/11/16/should-governments-be-able-to-censor-facebook/#ixzz15W9UjHos