[6582] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
from IP: Proposed US military budget will fund domestic wiretapping
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perry E. Metzger)
Mon Feb 7 19:39:56 2000
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: 07 Feb 2000 19:36:08 -0500
Message-ID: <871z6oh6o7.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
Forwarded from Dave Farber's "Interesting People" list.
------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 18:16:51 -0500
From: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: IP: Proposed US military budget will fund domestic wiretapping
>http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34164,00.html
>
> Clinton's Wiretap-Heavy Budget
> by Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
>
> 1:25 p.m. 7.Feb.2000 PST
> WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's
> proposed $1.84 trillion budget includes
> millions of dollars in new spending on
> technology and law enforcement
> programs.
>
> The record budget request for the 2001
> fiscal year, which begins 1 October, asks
> Congress for more money for wiretapping,
> police databases, antitrust enforcement,
> and computer crime forensics.
>
> One of the heftiest increases, from $15
> million to $240 million, will pay telephone
> companies to rewire their networks to
> facilitate federal and state wiretapping.
> Under the 1994 Communications
> Assistance to Law Enforcement Act
> (CALEA), Congress may "reimburse" phone
> companies for their efforts, but the
> controversial process is the subject of a
> lawsuit currently before a federal appeals
> court.
>
> Half of that money, $120 million, will come
> from the Department of Defense's
> "national security" budget -- a move that
> alarms privacy groups.
>
> "The proposal to use thinly disguised
> intelligence agency money to fund CALEA
> confirms what we have suspected all
> along: the National Security Agency is a
> silent partner in the government's
> campaign to make our entire
> telecommunications system, including the
> Net, wiretap ready," says Barry
> Steinhardt, associate director of the
> American Civil Liberties Union.
>
> [...]
------- End of forwarded message -------
