The Obama Internet policy is taking a bit of a different turn besides calling for greater broadband access. The Obama administration, along with intelligence and regulation enforcement agencies, want even more monitoring powers online, which could be part of a brand new bill going before Congress sometime within the near future. Should the bill, which isn’t really slated to go before Congress until 2011, pass into regulation, higher accessibility will be granted by mandate to law enforcement and intelligence officials. You will find few methods of electronic communication that aren’t already under monitoring. This will shorten that list even further.
Obama Internet spying agenda
There is a bill that is planned for next year, according to the NY Times, that will expand wiretap and monitoring powers for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The White House is on board, and the Obama Internet surveillance bill will likely go to Congress next year. The bill will mandate that all methods of communication be designed to allow government surveillance. The reason is that some communications, especially those on the Internet, are encrypted and private.
Small company are affected
The disadvantage to regulations of this sort is that small independent shops have to work double time to keep up with mandates, whereas an already large business can very easily comply. Recent bans of the Blackberry due to the way Research In Motion designed it occurred, over exactly this type of issue. The machine keeps emails and other messages encrypted and private, off limits even to the company itself. RIM, along with other tech businesses for instance voice over internet protocol business Skype, would have to re-engineer products to allow for federal intervention. .
All hearing ear
There are few methods of communication, apart from speaking in person, that aren’t subject to domestic monitoring. There was a great deal of controversy over the Bush domestic spying program. Obama has not dealt with fears of subversion of civil liberties. The government maintains that its requests for access are not unreasonable, nor unprecedented. There are individuals that do pose a threat to public safety that could be caught using these methods. However, this kind of power is effortlessly misused.
Citations
NY Times
nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html?pagewanted=1
