Wiretap The Internet Day: Mother's Day, Part 2 Of 4

...And the second of today's festivities concerns the upcoming "Wiretap The Internet Day," May 14th.

...The WHAT?!? you might ask?

Well, you see, in 1994, Congress passed a law called CALEA, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. It allowed the FCC, and domestic policing agencies, to demand greatly increased facility for installing wiretaps be built into the communications infrastructure.

Now, thanks to a seemingly endless supply of officials in technology-oriented positions who know nothing, and care less, about technology, the FCC has succeeded in convincing some judges somewhere that CALEA should apply to the Internet, as well, and as a result, May 14th is the deadline for basically all broadband providers, cable and DSL alike, to set up built-in monitoring stations to allow the police to more rapidly deploy wiretaps monitoring electronic communications, not only including email, but in fact tracking web browsing habits, instant messages, and data traffic of all descriptions.

Of course, they will still require a search warrant to do this, but these days that's hardly more than a rubber-stamp formality.

Since the deadline for telephone compliance in 2002, the number of court-ordered wiretaps has nearly doubled. Is there any reason to suspect that it won't do the same, or worse, following tomorrow?

No, there really isn't. The easier and less time-consuming we make it for government agencies to spy on the citizens, the more they will resort to that, rather than actually looking for evidence.

I just can't wait to see what happens when they begin outlawing certain kinds of speech.

Make no mistake; it's going to happen. Democrats have already stated openly that they intend - if they ever get sufficient control of Congress to do so - to pass legislation declaring conservative opinion equivalent to sedition. Yes, they're trying to make it illegal to be a Republican. Wow.

Do you really think they'd scruple at outlawing sexually-oriented websites? Or political ones, if they disagree with the current wave of hysterical communism? I think not. And tomorrow, they have yet another arrow in their quiver; one more weapon to assist them in doing so.

Isn't "representative government" wonderful?