Efforts to Address Cybercrime Put Privacy at Risk

New laws could threaten the privacy of internet users, eventually forcing users to accept public life online or opt out completely.

cyber_security

Warrantless wiretapping, and the FBI National Security Letters have been very controversial piece of law enforcement’s apparatus in the last few years. Wiretapping has been used by the FBI to access cell phone and laptop microphones in recent years. Now that cybercrime is on the rise, the FBI says it has the power to intercept the calls and texts of anyone, as long as the target is in public at the time.

“The FBI has argued that there can be no inherent expectation of privacy when a conversation takes place in a common area, no matter the distance from other human beings,” writes Daily Dot contributor Dell Cameron.

Cameron adds: The FBI and other agencies use a device called a stingray, which while “masquerading as a cell-phone tower and transmitting intermittent signals, can deceive a mobile device to force a connection.

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