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Today's Poll: Should it be easier for law enforcement to intercept online communications?

By Howard B. Owens
Peter O'Brien

For Non-Citizens (not including those that have applied)
YES!

For Citizens, a warrant should still need to be submitted.

Sep 27, 2010, 10:04am Permalink
Jason Brunner

If there is reasonable suspicion as to what someone is doing then yes! Because the people who say no are the ones who will say, after the terrorist plot has been carried out, why didn't anyone catch that. After it has happened is too late to figure out how they could have known. It is time to start being proactive. America is not out there in the world making friends, and if we keep letting people into our country then we need to be watching our back.

Sep 27, 2010, 10:15am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

To be clear, the government isn't asking for new permission or new laws, per se. They want to require technology companies to offer tools to tap into otherwise untappable communication. RIM would have to offer decryption technology for encrypted blackberry messages; Skype would have to allow agents a way to listen in on Skype calls. Facebook would have to offer a door into private messages between users.

The same technology that would allow the U.S. to spy on anybody would then also allow, say, China or Iran to spy on dissidents.

Sep 27, 2010, 10:58am Permalink
Jeremiah Pedro

I agree with Chris on this one.
The government and law enforcement are still subject to the law.

Unreasonable search and seizure is still that no matter how much lipstick you throw on it.

Sep 27, 2010, 11:24am Permalink
C. M. Barons

First Amendment- Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Fourth Amendment– The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, 1775.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." -Thomas Jefferson, 1791.

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." -John Adams, 1772.

"The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun." -John D. Rockefeller.

Sep 27, 2010, 1:41pm Permalink

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