May 2006 Archives
« April 2006 | Main | June 2006 »
Actually, I don't know that for a fact. But what does anybody know for a fact these days regarding U.S. government surveillance?
One thing I do know for certain is that eSecurity Planet columnist Ray Everett-Church takes a rather dim view of the the National Security Agency's program to log billions of phone calls made by regular Americans in the name of combating terrorism. Citing the insta-survey following last Thursday's USA Today bombshell, in which 63 percent of respondents expressed no problems with the NSA call-logging, Ray writes:
Those 63 percent are no stranger to me. I first met them back in a college political science course in the late 1980s.They’re roughly the same gaggle of fine, upstanding Americans who, if you ask the questions just right, would shred the Constitution, ban free speech, abandon privacy rights, and happily give away almost every other civil liberty that makes America great.
He goes on to blast AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth for volunteering to cooperate with the government, and credits Qwest for refusing to cave, even in the face of threats:
The NSA also reportedly threatened Qwest with withholding future government contracts if they didn’t play along with the NSA’s illegal activities.
A new poll taken over the weekend seems to show that, upon some reflection, fewer Americans support the NSA phone-data program, with 51 percent registering opposition.
This morning I found myself wondering whether it was possible to monitor calls made on Skype. I asked a friend of mine who covers telecommunications for another publication, and he doubted it, explaining that Skype encrypts from computer to computer and doesn't let anyone know its encryption method.
Further, he said, the tech part of Skype is run out of Eastern Europe, so it's unlikely the NSA would be able to get the code. My friend concluded that it's "pretty near impossible" for anyone to eavesdrop on a Skype call.
At this point in the conversation, an NSA representative interjected to inform us that this was a misconception.