posted on November 23, 2001 06:35:27 AM new
"The FBI is going to new lengths to be sure it can eavesdrop on high-tech communications, secretly building "Magic Lantern" software to monitor computer use...
The Magic Lantern technology, part of a broad FBI project called "Cyber Knight," would allow investigators to secretly install over the Internet powerful eavesdropping software that records every keystroke on a person's computer, according to people familiar with the effort...
In contrast, Magic Lantern could be installed over the Internet by tricking a person into opening an e-mail attachment or by exploiting some of the same weaknesses in popular commercial software that allow hackers to break into computers."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3371-2001Nov22.html
posted on November 23, 2001 07:30:55 AM new
I suspect that the FBI already has this surveilance capability and is currently using it. But, as Ashcroft has taken advantage of the military action in Afghanistan to impliment his agenda to violate our civil rights, the FBI is now doing the same to legalize their outrageous surveilance so that it can by used in court. Dictatorial control is being implimented so quickly that it makes my head swim.
What in the hell is congress doing about this intrusion of our privacy?
posted on November 23, 2001 07:55:13 AM new
From a legal standpoint, can the FBI use anything they recover from someone's computer? If they are looking originally for evidence of a bank robery ring, but in reviewing the computer files, they find evidence that the computer owner had committed a state crime several years earlier, will they share that info? This just opens too much to abuse. Could politicians be blackmailed for something embarrassing that one of their staff members had done when evidence is found on the office's computer?
posted on November 23, 2001 05:31:14 PM new
Helen, I agree that the technology is likely already developed and has been, is being tested.
saabsister, I know little about law but in your first question I would assume that they could use the evidence that they discover about another crime since that is permissible in other types of searches. The possibilities for blackmail or political information gathering is what I find most alarming. Using the technology in the furtherance of political agenda or personal vendetta. Surveillance can be used as a form of control and manipulation.
