McConnell - All your internet are belong to us

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/US_drafting_plan_to_allow_government_0114.html

"US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today.

Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

The article, which profiles the 65-year-old former admiral appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2007 to oversee all of America's intelligence agencies, was not published on the New Yorker's Web site.

McConnell is developing a Cyber-Security Policy, still in the draft stage, which will closely police Internet activity.

"Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the autority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search," author Lawrence Wright pens.

“Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation, he said," Wright adds. "Giorgio warned me, 'We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"

A zero-sum game is one in which gains by one side come at the expense of the other. In other words -- McConnell's aide believes greater security can only come at privacy's expense.

McConnell has been an advocate for computer-network defense, which has previously not been the province of any intelligence agency.

According to a 2007 conversation in the Oval Office, McConnell told President Bush, “If the 9/11 perpetrators had focused on a single US bank through cyber-attack and it had been successful, it would have an order of magnitude greater impact on the US economy.”

Bush turned to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, asking him if it was true; Paulson said that it was. Bush then asked to McConnell to come up with a network security strategy.

"One proposal of McConnell’s Cyber-Security Policy, which is still in the draft stage, is to reduce the access points between government computers and the Internet from two thousand to fifty," Wright notes. "He claimed that cyber-theft account for as much as a hundred billion dollars in annual losses to the American economy. 'The real problem is the perpetrator who doesn’t care about stealing—he just wants to destroy.'"

The infrastructure to tap into Americans' email and web search history may already be in place.

In November, a former technician at AT&T alleged that the telecom forwarded virtually all of its Internet traffic into a "secret room" to facilitate government spying.

Whistleblower Mark Klein said that a copy of all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office -- to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access -- via a cable splitting device."

Also:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/01/13/dancing-spychief-wants-to-tap-into-cyberspace/

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2207263/spy-chief-declares-privacy

 

One word: WOW.

 

Hello,

There's a worrying trend in the world. Old, established democracies are choking themselves with all sorts of anti-privacy laws and such while new, rising democracies are getting more liberal. Kind of, one must earn freedom / privacy to really appreciate it. People today have no idea what it's like being constantly watched and will only cry out when it becomes too late.

The trend is alarming, especially with US being the "leader" of the free world yet with one of the worse privacy records among democracies.

What can we do? Well, enjoy the moment...

Mrk

 

It makes me glad that I'm not an USA citizen.

 

Does the government already control Internet?

 

Oh dear.....

 

I would guess so since they invented it.

 

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Benjamin Franklin

 

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

So let's get busy out there...

Mike

 

LOL!!

 

I love the title to this thread.."All your internet are belong to us". LOL....That's some pretty tortured English. I love it.

 

Let us agree the US government did in fact supply the original impetus and cash to create the internet, and that the purpose was to establish a decentralized system of information transfer to their benefit. Then so be it. For a moment forget the original motivation. Look now at the current situation. The internet belongs to those who now possess it...that is individuals like you and me. The new composition of that internet is ours to maintain and defend. Where we have a will, we can make a way. We can use the latest open-source software to overcome the Microsoft-Government alliance, to develop encryption and individualized communciation transfers, to support resources like PGP, BestCrypt, and TrueCrypt ( and others), and to debate issues in this and other forums.
There are those who are working hard to censor us ( for the sake of the children, they might claim ), or to protect the property rights of the rich and famous ( movie stars, musical performers, game developers, and the like ). I think we will need a new way of accounting for their accomplishments. Maybe, they might need to accept less financial rewards. Maybe we need superior methods of rewarding creative persons,
But, do not allow any thoughts of meek surrender to controls set by others. The masses are motivated by emotional considerations in most countries ( the US included ), but we can always find an intelligent pathway to continued personal freedom. After all, they won't fight in close quarters, and we will.
This is not meant to sound jingoistic. You and I know we will win in the long term. The flow of history is to individualism. Members of this forum know that.

 

Wise advice.

No purchase.. just work it out.

Probably or hopefully.