Newly Released Documents Detail FBI’s Plan to Expand Federal Surveillance Laws

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America, Land of the Free

EFF just received documents in response to a 2-year old FOIA request for information on the FBI’s "Going Dark" program, an initiative to increase the FBI's authority in response to problems the FBI says it's having implementing wiretap and pen register/trap and trace orders on new communications technologies. The documents detail a fully-formed and well-coordinated plan to expand existing surveillance laws and develop new ones. And although they represent only a small fraction of the documents we expect to receive in response to this and a more recent FOIA request, they were released just in time to provide important background information for the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing tomorrow on the Going Dark program.

We first heard about the FBI’s Going Dark program in 2009, when the agency’s Congressional budget request included an additional $9 million to fund the program (on top of the $233.9 million it already received). Late last year, the New York Times linked the program to a plan to expand federal surveillance laws like the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). We issued FOIA requests to the FBI in 2009 for information on Going Dark and in 2010 for information on the agency’s plans to update CALEA. These are the first documents we’ve received since we filed our lawsuit against the agency late last year. The documents provide rare insight into the agency’s multi-year strategy to increase its power to surveil our communications.

Here’s What the Documents Show:
What is the "Going Dark" Program?

The name "Going Dark" is cryptic, and the FBI’s public statements about the program are even more so. Nevertheless, FBI’s Operational Technology Division states that the program is one of the FBI’s "top initiatives" and has "gotten attention so far from high ranking officials in other federal, state, and local agencies and from industry." (GD4, p. 110).1 The FBI has told reporters in emails that Going Dark is:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/newly-released-documents-detail-fbi-s-plan-expand?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[RandomThoughts]

1. And according to such 'programs'

That article could be true or not.

What they don't know about downward spiral, is security spends their credibility, and hence why it fails. Enforcement has to be shown just, and have just information exchange to maintain any trust of the citizenry.

However that helps society as they learn to look for credibility in the comment.

Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but I still don't have the beer and travel money that is due, and many experiences, and that should be corrected.

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2. Any piece of information can be true or false

Then any particular person can be unable to see what is right in front of them.