p2pnet.net News View:- US federal law enforcement agencies are demanding greater surveillance powers so they can quickly tap the Net on aircraft.

“Authorities want the ability to intercept, block or divert e-mail or other online communication to and from airplanes after obtaining a court order,” says the Washington Post.

“Internet providers would have to allow government monitoring within 10 minutes of a court order being granted, be able to electronically identify users by their seat numbers and be required to collect and store records of the communications for 24 hours.”

Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff will announce a major restructuring of his department today, “changing how the two-year-old agency handles intelligence, sets policy and manages key law enforcement operations,” says the story, going on:

“Such capabilities would go far beyond the government’s current ability to monitor Internet traffic on land.

Law enforcement agencies say they, "support giving travelers the ability to surf the Web and communicate via e-mail or instant messaging in the air but also fear that terrorists could use the services to coordinate an attack among themselves on a single plane, between aircraft or with people on the ground,” states the Post.

“The government also fears terrorists could use Internet-connected devices to detonate explosives via remote control.”

Basically, “this is the full ability to control all communications into and out of" a particular spot, James X. Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, is quoted as saying.

The FBI, Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security have jointly filed with the Federal Communications Commission, which is examining mostly technical changes to rules for satellite-based Internet services in hopes of spurring more deployment on airplanes, says the story. The service is available on some international airlines, but domestic carriers have not yet launched it.

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See:-
Washington Post – Enhanced In-Air Internet Surveillance Sought, July 13, 2005

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2005 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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