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PoliticsOL.com Editorial - Week of August 5, 2001
Federal Policy Hindering Internet Security
Last week several hundred computers, most of them in the United States, were infected by the "Code Red" virus.
Next week or next month, there surely will be yet another virus causing problems for Internet users and web sites.
Why haven't software and hardware companies been able to effectively combat these problems? The answer is the federal government.
The Justice Department and the FBI do not want more effective encryption software and other security measures out on the market that will protect the files and Internet privacy of average Americans and small business.
Why? They are afraid that such products will hinder their ability to investigate and convict drug dealers and other criminals who are increasingly using the Internet to help in their schemes.
The result, unfortunately, is that law-abiding citizens, their e-mail and computer data become an ever-easier prey for the hackers and other criminals.
The FBI is also worried that stronger measures used to protect privacy and computer data will interfere with its massive surveillance project, Carnivore. The software system, installed on a targeted Internet Service Provider (ISP) is able to systematically parse through all Internet communication, looking at e-mail, web site logs, etc., of a particular suspect and supposedly weed out only the information pertaining to a search warrant. In other words, it would sort of be like the U.S. Postal Service opening, reading and re-sealing every piece of mail it receives and delivers looking for anything about a given criminal suspect.
Scary, eh? Well, that's a surveillance technique that the public now KNOWS about. The scary part is what the government does that is NOT known about.
This past week, the Los Angeles Times reported on how during the Reagan Administration the FBI paid informants for information on the public meetings of a U.S. Member of Congress, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) -- information such as what he said, where he said it, who attended the meetings, etc. The FBI files on Frank even contained his public correspondence on U.S. immigration policy, stamping such letters as "classified."
Such actions are an outrage and shows that the spirit of J. Edgar Hoover lives on quite well at the Bureau.
Rather than monitor the lives of law-abiding citizens and their duly-elected representatives, the FBI would serve this nation better if it turned its surveillance efforts inward once in a while: the Robert Hansen spying scandal, finding nearly 200 highly-classified laptop computers, hundreds of missing FBI-issued firearms, etc.
The Bureau might also take the time to have its officials read the U.S. Constitution, particularly the Fourth Amendment.
PoliticsOL.com reserves the right to shorten or to edit letters for clarity. Only signed letters will be considered for publication. (i.e., include name, city & state of residence)
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