Thread: White House proposes "easing access to Internet records for FBI"

Found this tidbit via a few different news sources and it jogged my mind about some older and very fractious threads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072806141.html

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...iR1IqG30_gv-tQ
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...et-providers/1

If the Obama administration persuades Congress, Internet providers would be more easily forced to hand over records to the FBI without a court order for terrorism and intelligence investigations, The Washington Post reports.

The new data being sought by the Justice Department could include web browsing history, search history, e-mail times and dates, your location and even Facebook friend requests. The "content" of e-mails or other electronic communications would not covered by the proposed change, the Post says, citing government lawyers.

Hmm - brings back memories attached to this thread and many many posts in it.

http://www.teamplayergaming.com/show...d-for-one-year....

So - how are things going now? Better, worse, or about the same?

Why should that be legal to do and emails need a court order? That makes no sense.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

Why should that be legal to do and emails need a court order? That makes no sense.

because it should have never been legal in the first place :P

I have a feeling the S.C. will shut that shit down.

National security letters are total bullshit and the way the FBI is using them is just ridiculous.... virtually no accountability and zero transparency.

Now, I understand that there do need to be laws put into place that govern email, IM, social networks and other "new" (in the legal sense) forms of communications. But lets do something that makes sense, not these BS secret letters demanding information...

The logic behind emails requiring a warrant and this is that the content of the emails are released from a warrant. Under this new law the content of the electronic communications would not be divulged. So the ISP would say, yes this IP connected to this one and sent this type of information, but they wouldn't be required to release the actual content.

Basically they could say, yep he sent an envelope, but I'm not letting you know whats in the envelope.

It's an interesting stance and could be used to help gain further powers...well if i don't need a warrant for this, why should i need one for that, etc. Slippery slope and all that jazz.

Except the part about being able to also request, and have released, "web browsing history" and considering that more and more people/services are switching to browser based email systems...how much of the email content sent/received is cached in history. To say nothing of the fact that most email is sent "in the clear."

While true..the web browsing history that is mentioned is simply which URLs you visited, not what you typed in on the site, and not any form of content from the electronic communications. Basically they want to be able to follow where you go, just like they would tail a suspect and follow his/her actions in real life.

I'm a little torn on this as a security analyst, I'm all for the idea of being able to track down where someone has gone, but at the same time on a personal level I don't know if I want the FBI knowing that I visit Justin Beiber's blog.