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Electronic Eavesdropping is Legally Hard for the Government, But Technically Easy

Электронное прослушивание для властей затруднено законами, но легкоосуществимо технически


As you learned in the last section, wiretapping is legally difficult for the government: it must obtain a hard-to-get intercept order or "super-warrant" from a court, subject to strict oversight and variety of strong privacy protections. However, wiretapping is typically very technically easy for the government. For example, practically anyone within range of your laptop's wireless signal, including the government, can intercept your wireless Internet communications. Similarly, practically anyone within range of your cell phone's radio signal, including the government, can — with a few hundred bucks to buy the right equipment — eavesdrop on your cell phone conversations.


As far as communications that travel over telecommunications' companies cables and wires rather than (or in addition to) traveling over the air, the government has very sophisticated wiretapping capabilities. For example, using a nationwide surveillance system called "DCSNet" ("DCS" stands for "Digital Collection System") that is tied into key telecommunications switches across the country, FBI agents can from the comfort of their field offices "go up" on a particular phone line and start intercepting or pen-trap tapping wireline phone calls, cellular phone calls, SMS text messages and push-to-talk communications, or start tracking a cell phone's location, at a moment's notice. The government is believed to have similar capabilities when it comes to Internet communications. The extensive and powerful capabilities of the DCSNet, first uncovered in government documents that EFF obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (details at http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/061708CKK), are well-summarized in the Wired.com article "Point, Click...Eavesdrop: How the FBI Wiretap Net Operates".


Using "bugs" to eavesdrop on your oral conversations has also gotten much easier for the government with changes in technology. Most notably, the government now has the technical capability, with the cooperation of your cell phone provider, to convert the microphone on some cell phones or the cell phone in your car's emergency services system into a bug. The government likely also has the ability, with your phone company's help, to open the line on your landline phone and use its microphone as a bug, although we've yet to see any specific cases where such landline phone-based bugging has been used. Finally, the government may even have the capability, using remotely-installed government malware, to turn on the microphone or camera on your computer.


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