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Posted on 11/20/2012 7:41:03 AM PST by yoe
A Senate proposal (touted) as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.
CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.
Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
I guess if you want any privacy you should use the USPS.
Everyone talked about how this could/would happen when the Patriot Act was introduced..
Email is not a secure medium, and trying to pretend that it is is foolish.
Passing laws to restrict the ability of third parties from reading email makes as much sense as passing laws to keep the rest of the neighborhood from listening in while you the guy next door yell at each other from your respective back porches.
Email is a party line that anyone can listen in on. If you don’t want everyone to hear, encrypt it.
Who cares? If they read my FB postings, they know.
can this be used to find out what the EPA is up to ?
Congress demands EPAs secret email accounts
Claim: EPA Head Used Secret Email to Hide Documents
Only the deceit is transparent
House investigates EPA emails, as agency says administrators have two accounts
House GOP: Obama officials using secret emails to avoid oversight
Welcome to the New Amerika Comrades...
Just use code words. My family has been doing it for years. The volume of email traffic is so much that they would have to use programs that key in on certain words or phrases. They would then need a human to cipher thru all the garbage.
I will be arrested for being The Least Interesting Man In The World.
Invest in a secure certificate for your email, and you can encrypt your communications. I setup a basic email relay on some cheap home computer equipment and use a software certificate I purchased from Entrust for $20. In order to read my email, you have to have the proper hash key on the other end or be the certified recipient of the email. Since I don’t send much email, it doesn’t matter, but the peace of mind is worth it.
Purchase a TPM module for your existing computer or buy one with it already installed (pretty standard in newer stuff), and you can encrypt your thumb drives and local disks to prevent anyone from accessing it without a secure password.
I use multi-factor encryption/authentication for all of my stuff. If the FBI, CIA, or local law enforcement wanted to see what’s on my computers, they’d need my 31 character, 156 bit password or have a supercomputer powerful enough to crack 2048 bit encryption. Something tells me they won’t waste their time.
Sarin, plutonium, Pentagon, White House, bin Laden.
Oops, this is the Obama administration. New suspect words must be used:
Freedom, liberty, second amendment, Constitution, birth certificate, America.
My guess is a lot of people care. Not everyone uses Facebook, nor do they want the government reading their email.
The ever increasing noose is tightened around our necks.
Nice knowing you America.
It was a facetious comment. My point is that what I put on FB is much more damming than any of my emails, if the gov. is interested.
Use a 128 keyword to encrypt and maybe their great grand kids might crack it, or use what’s called “a one time pad” or to really play with whatever minds they have, just type gibberish with one or two key words in the clear to have them pull it.
Gotcha. Sometimes it’s hard to tell in the written word. :)
“Everyone talked about how this could/would happen when the Patriot Act was introduced.”
Not quite everyone. Republican statists assured everyone that it couldn’t happen here.
Both parties are accomplices in the embezzlement of American liberty.
I know. But I do think it’s ridiculous how much info the gov. can get on us without a warrant. I guess we can thank the Patriot Act for that.
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