Colleges Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems (for easier monitoring)

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT, page one: Colleges Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems
By SAM DILLON and STEPHEN LABATON
Published: October 23, 2005


The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.

The action, which the government says is intended to help catch terrorists and other criminals, has unleashed protests and the threat of lawsuits from universities, which argue that it will cost them at least $7 billion while doing little to apprehend lawbreakers. Because the government would have to win court orders before undertaking surveillance, the universities are not raising civil liberties issues.

The order, issued by the Federal Communications Commission in August and first published in the Federal Register last week, extends the provisions of a 1994 wiretap law not only to universities, but also to libraries, airports providing wireless service and commercial Internet access providers.

It also applies to municipalities that provide Internet access to residents, be they rural towns or cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco, which have plans to build their own Net access networks.

So far, however, universities have been most vocal in their opposition....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/technology/23college.html?hp&ex=1130126400&en=caee4eed74533703&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[BiggJawn]

1. Never mind the "Big Brotherism", think of the COST!

This should be a gawd-send for most colleges, since there's this meme circulating in Higher Education that the more you charge for tuition, the more "World-Class Pre-emminence" you have.

It's the "Jische Doctrine"

[Indy Lurker]

2. I don't see any value in this.

If you were going to participate in illegal / covert communications, wouldn't you use some form of encryption?

Wouldn't that make peeking at you communications useless?

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Noticed this was the most e-mailed NYT article today, so kicking...

for the weekday crowd.

[tomg]

4. While universities seem to be making the

most noise about this, the reach is extensive, and the cost will be equally devastating to smaller companies, libraries ( hell, our town library had to buy a paper shredder after the Patriot Act - no shit, keeping freedom isn't free, particularly with Bush in charge, particularly in a Patriot Act Free Town), and small municipalities.

That fact that it is so patently absurd for universities ( among others) to have to go through this, that there are already national academic organizations that have to deal with this similar things like this quite often, and that they have a hook and a natural constituency that will collectively complain about this, makes it logical for them to be point of this. In fact, the possible rise in tuition as a result, and university admins will justifiably blame it on Bush, will work against Bushco. The tuition rise at private institutions, like the one I work at, will be direct and that will tick off one group. The rise at state institutions will result in more money for education coming from taxes,and that will tick everyone off.

There are only three reasons why I can think Bushco is really worried that some untenured assistant prof specializing in minor practitioners of German lyric poetry of the mid-nineteenth century at some private college tottering on the edge of ecomoic extinction is trying to send messages to terrorists by e mail:

1) It is part of the overall strategy for constant surveillance and Big Brotherism. Patriot Act, Diebold machines, End of Democracy stuff. Normally, I go with this, but I am not too paranoid today. Maybe Fitzgerald's impending indictments just have me feeling chipper;

2) It is part of corporate America's attempt to consolidate communications, squash smaller companies and individual muncipalities, and basically set up their own monopolies;

3) the Bush administration are complete idiots who have absolutely no sense of the consequences of their actions and are, as usual, going after flies with flamethrowers.

I am going with 2 and 3.