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In early 1999, the FBI
began approaching Internet Service Providers...with
a device it wanted to attach directly to their servers...called "Carnivore"...it
automatically downloads all of the electronic transmissions flowing
through the servers from e-mails to website visits to chat room discuss-
ions and more.
...the Wall Street Journal broke the story, on July 11th.The revelation
provoked a public controversy...Several ISP also objected to the FBI's
surveillance system...Despite the publicity generated by the
Wall Street Journal story it was
impossible to know how much information
the FBI had already collected with Carnivore or what happened to it.
According to the New York Times: An even more sophisticate
system [at the
writing of this book] that will monitor computer-to-computer logins including
e-mails was projected to be ready by 2003.
In chapter 4 of this piece "The new Ghetto Informant Program" Jim Redden
makes the case that police have a greater incentive to use informants in
drug cases than in others because there are
victimless crimes.
...congress used the cocaine related death of Boston Celtic basket ball
player Len Bias as an excuse,
passing the Comprehensive Crime Control
Act of 1986, dramatically increasing the penalties for crack, under the
guidelines established by the law the minimum sentence for someone
convicted of selling 5 grams of crack is the same as that for a person
found guilty of trying to sell 500 grams of powered cocaine....Suddenly,
minor drug users were facing the kind of penalties reserved for murderers
and criminal king pins...
There was only one way to avoid
serving the new mandatory minimum
sentence -- provide the government with
..."substantial assistance"...in
other words become a snitch. According to a 1995 study by the National
Law Journal, Between 1980 and 1993, the number of
Federal search
warrants relying exclusively on unidentified snitches nearly tripled, from
24 to 71 percent."
In this book you'll find
case studies of children being used to snitch on
their parents. Citizens being scared into setting themselves up with this popular law enforcement cliché, "If you haven't done
anything wrong you have nothing
to be afraid of." With some terrible consequences. And it has all gotten
worst since "911."
Do you know that under the
law Cell phones manufactures have to incorporate
built in tracking devices into their phones?
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