wondering everyones thoughts on this Options

[UNDEAD 1]

im split on this one,something tells me our gov will take advantage of this down the road.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071218/pl_nm/...u9leqt1OD0E1vAI

[T/A6Pak]

Wow, that is scary.. Interception of telecommunications without a warrant!! This means that any communication you have has a chance to be intercepted. I'm not up to date on all the facts on this bill. But I know in Canada, we need a warrant. If you have enough solid information, a warrant is easy to get. Why are these communication compainies doing the spying.. that should be done by intelligence units.

Watch what you say, big brother is listening!!

[HammaTime]

I remember when Echelon first came to light in the early 90's, the Europeans started complaining that the US NSA was sharing their intercepts with US companies, thereby giving those US companies an unfair advantage in their industrial espionage. There were many allegations that US companies had stolen proprietary information from European companies and were beating them to patent application with the foreign company's inventions. That was pre-2001.

The laws on the books at that time made it illegal for US intelligence to gather signal intelligence on its citizens. Allegedly, they worked around this minor handicap by letting five other countries access the data streams and those other country's personnel were the "official" spies. Each country would intercept communications from another country, thereby enabling them all to skirt their domestic spying laws.

There was a widely publicized claim that Echelon could record any conversation, anywhere in the world, in real time. Quite the claim. Obviously, they may have been able to record those conversations, but they clearly didn't have the resources to properly analyze the data and 9/11 stands as evidence of that ... unless you are a conspiracy theorist.

Today, we know that all of our email and web traffic is being captured by the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program. This first came to light when AT&T technician, Mark Klein, turned whistleblower and revealed details of their operation in hubs across the country. Read about it here.

I'm certainly not personally threatened that the US government can read, record and store every email I send, as I have nothing to hide. But, what about those pre-2001 arguments?

What happens if the government decides to help one of their favored companies? For example, what if AT&T donates heavily to the Clinton campaign and then, once in office, she rewards their support by giving them access to all Verizon and Sprint company communications? Worse yet, what if she decided to give our gaming strats to DeV??? Or, what happens if in 50 years from now our government decides to ban guns and takes away our few remaining liberties?

It strikes me as ludicrous that anyone would feel truly comfortable giving any government unfettered access to any and all communication.

Polls show that a majority of Americans feel that big business has too much influence on government. Well, this bill illustrates that when it comes to the government/big business nexus, it truly is a two way street. This bill just formalizes the arrangement.