IP: re: Russia spies on its own people -- not just Russia! [man has a point djf]

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Warren [mailto:jwarren () well com]
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2000 6:46 PM
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Re: IP: Russia spies on its own people -- not just Russia!


> St. Petersburg Times
> January 14, 2000
> Russia's Electronic Police Get Carte Blanche
>
> Under an obscure bit of legislation quietly approved by acting President
> Vladimir Putin, the nation's major law enforcement and security bodies -
> from the tax police to the Border Guards - are to be technically equipped
> to enjoy instant real-time access to e-mail and other electronic traffic.


So what?  Sounds like they're just following what the U.S. did, four years
ago -- in the CALEA, the so-called "Communications Assistance to Law
Enforcement Act."

After all, the 1996 CALEA not only authorized spending half-a-billion U.S.
tax-dollars to bribe the American telcos to make all of our nation's
telephones undetectably wiretap-ready by remote control for remote
monitoring, anywhere in the country.

In doing so, it also authorized every podunk constable, ill-supervised
deputy, suspicious spouse-with-a-badge, and ALL local, state and federal
law enforcers to covertly snoop and peep, "under court order *OR* WHEN
OTHERWISE AUTHORIZED" ... coyly leaving completely undefined, what "other
authorizations" existed.

Geee ... didn't Nixon "authorize" the Watergate break-ins?

And don't forget all those hundreds of "Executive Orders" -- some of which
remain secret for "national security reasons."  ("National security" was
often the "authorization" rationale for thousands of other covert wiretaps
-- including Elvia Pressley, and the FBI's wiretaps of their own sitting
President and supposedly-supervising Attorney General [JFK and RFK] ...
just to name a few.)

Russia ... U.S.A. ... is there really that much difference in their "quiet
approval" of covert electronic surveillance of their citizens?  (Of course,
we aren't allowed to know ... are we?)

--jim-who-doesn't-even-THINK-he-has-any-secrets