Discussion - The Government is spying on your email and web surfing habits

[George Spellwin]

The Government is spying on your email and web surfing habits - Discussion

In January of this year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (the EFF), a group dedicated to defending your liberties and privacy on the Internet, filed a Freedom of Information Act inquiry with the FBI and other Justice Department offices to ascertain if the U.S. government is spying on your email and web surfing habits.

The answer is almost a certain yes, and the EFF is seeking documents to learn if the government is using the provisions of the USA Patriot Act to collect information about the contents of your email and your online activities without a search warrant.

It would seem reasonable to expect that your online habits are private. Yet, the Justice Department refuses to confirm whether it collects or believes it is authorized to collect information about what you're doing online.

The USA Patriot Act was hastily passed by Congress shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It pretty much tramples the bill of rights and curtails many of the civil liberties we are supposed to enjoy as part of the "war on terror."

As part of the act, the government can monitor your Web surfing records, use roving wiretaps to monitor phone calls you make if you are "proximate" to a primary person being tapped, access your ISP's records about you, and monitor the private records of people involved in legitimate protests.

The Justice Department already claims the new definitions allow them to collect email and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. But, the agency has not been forthcoming about Web surveillance. It will not say whether it believes URLs (a web address like http://www.elitefitness.com) can be collected about you, despite the fact that URLs clearly reveal exactly what you're looking at on the Web.

The Patriot Act was passed to fight terrorism, but, it is not limited to terrorism. For example, government spying on suspected "computer trespassers" requires no court order. Wiretaps are now allowed for any suspected violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, opening the door to government spying on any computer user.

The Patriot Act also gives ISPs the authority to release private data if a person's life is in danger without a court order. The Justice Department does not publish statistics on the number of times it has accessed such information, according to its report to the congressional committee.

Further, the Patriot Act requires domestic ISPs to comply with secret "National Security Letters" from the FBI. These letters can request information about you including your home address, the telephone calls that you have made, your email subject lines and the logs of the websites that you visited. And even the privacy statements of the three major ISPs, AOL, MSN, and Earthlink, give them permission to intercept your email and monitor what you're looking at online.

In this week's EliteFitness.com News, I'll share with you some new and startling developments in the multiple attacks against your privacy. And I'll tell you more about how to get a free secure, encrypted, offshore, web-based email account and file storage and why you need it now more than ever.

To read more, please go to:

http://www.elitefitness.com/articledata/efn/031405.html

And please discuss Internet privacy and free secure, encrypted, offshore, web-based EliteFitness.com email in this thread. Who here uses it?

 

[hamstershaver]

i hope the feds that follow me have a strong stomach when they follow me to the plumper porn room i visit frequently

 

[Stacemranger]

Ridiculous.

 

[OMEGA]

i hope the feds that follow me have a strong stomach when they follow me to the plumper porn room i visit frequently

haha

 

[OMEGA]

I have always known this



due to my political views I am sure I am on some list

and it makes me happy

hopefully they will learn from me

and change there ways

 

[wnt2bBeast]

you can never be too secure
erase your tracks clear your hard drive frequently

 

[Testosterone boy]

Encryption?


Their supercomputers can figure out encrypted messages muy pronto.


Actually....encryption probably heightens their level of interest.


Make a game out of it.

Bitch about the gov while flying American flags.

Bitch about Iraq while supporting the troops.

Make them scratch their heads.

 

[wesley90]

uh...Whats new?

 

[Ulter]

I hope if they are watching me that they can find a couple of emails I lost last week with my pics at the Arnold. Of course I'll have to wait for an indictment first so it might be a while.

 

[Fukkenshredded]

Mr. Spellwin--

What you are doing is quite irresponsible. Obviously you are not familiar with the exact language of the Patriot Act. You say that it tramples the Bill of Rights. Where, exactly? For that matter, do you agree with the Bill of Rights? Are you even familiar with that particular piece of literature? Please show me the passage in the Patriot Act that tramples any part of any of the first ten ammendments to the Constitution of the United States.

I agree that we, as citizens of a free country, have the right to be left alone. We have the right to think freely, and to express our thoughts freely in a peaceful manner.

Nowhere in the Bill of Rights or anywhere else is there a legislative promise to the privacy of such utterances, and with regard to private property (probably the most important right we have), the fifth ammendment states: "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Without just compensation. Some would consider a certain amount of security just compensation. While I realize that it is very en vogue to quote Benjamin Franklin's opinion on thematter of sacrificing liberty for security, the fact is, he is simply wrong in his analysis of what comprises a society to begin with.

I will say that I think that the Patriot Act has been wrongly applied in two instances. This is a result of voting ignorant elitists into office (and no, I'm not talking about Bush). But I will be very interested to hear what you have to say about what particular right of yours is currently being violated by the Patriot Act.

The fact that we can sit here, in this public forum, and dissent to our own government without punishment or even infringement, suggests to me that things are not as bad as everyone on these boards likes to think and act out about.

I notice that it is primarily the ones who are involved in criminal actrivity that are in opposition to this legislation, which to me, says it is effective, if somwhat invasive and imposing.

But again, Mr. Spellwin...what right of yours is being violated as you sit and read this post? What changed when the Patriot Act was signed that actually violates your rights more than they already have been? Show me the passages, and I will be glad to learn.