Surveillance of Telephone and Internet Communications in the Former Soviet Union
America, land of the free---what are you, a terrorist?
In the year 2000, the Russian government established a "System for Opertional-Investigative Activities" (SORM-2). StateWatch, a European civil liberties group, explained back then:
Under SORM-1 the Federal Security Bureau (FSB, the successor to the KGB) was required to obtain a warrant before obtaining data from service providers. Under the SORM-2 regulation all Internet service providers (ISPs) are required to install a "box", rerouting device, and a high speed communications line to hot-wire the provider to FSB headquarters. A warrant from a court is still needed for agencies to read any of the contents of the messages—though human rights groups suspect this may be by-passed. The FSB says SORM will help law enforcement agencies track down and catch criminals ranging from "tax evaders to paedophiles".
The FSB seems to have forgotten about terrorists, which is the criminal class that makes this kind of civil liberties violation A-OK for the usual suspects. StateWatch also notes similar procedures and rules in place in the United Kingdom and the EU.
Maybe Khruschev was half-right?
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Man, that photo takes me back… to watching the first season of The Americans.
I liked it and will be back next season. I guess I miss out on the 80s nostalgia aspect of it.
The Soviets were everywhere.
Director of SORM?
Yeah, but where’s the outrage? Google didn’t have a D-Day doodle!
Are they pro-Hitler?
I’m disappointed, only because I’d like to see an image of Allied troops being slaughtered contorted into the letters G-O-O-G-L-E.
Google only does doodles for PC douche bag things. Military anniversaries are just icky.
Reason, please stop using that photo. It’s just plain dumb. It’s what appears to be a primitive caller ID connected to a handset and an acoustic coupler. That setup would serve no useful purpose and the acoustic coupler pictured didn’t work that well with flat handsets.
Srsly, this is like poking a bunch of xmas tree lights through a sheet of cardboard and thinking it looks like a computer.
That’s no acoustic coupler, that’s some sort of artificial vagina.
You say that about everything.
If it works for that purpose, does it matter what the designer thought it was for?
You stole my plans to build a computer.
Dude thats like way cool and you know it.
http://www.AnonStuff.tk