FCC Says Internet Must Meet Needs Of FBI, Not First Amendment
Via Undernews
DECLAN MCCULLAGH, CNET - The Federal Communications Commission thinks you have the right to use software on your computer only if the FBI approves. In an obscure "policy" document released around 9 p.m. ET last Friday, the FCC announced this remarkable decision. According to the three-page document, to preserve the openness that characterizes today's Internet, "consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement."
Read the last seven words again.
The FCC didn't offer much in the way of clarification. But the clearest reading of the pronouncement is that some unelected bureaucrats at the commission have decreed that Americans don't have the right to use software such as Skype or PGPfone if it doesn't support mandatory backdoors for wiretapping. (That interpretation was confirmed by an FCC spokesman on Monday, who asked not to be identified by name. Also, the announcement came at the same time as the FCC posted its wiretapping rules for Internet telephony.)
Nowhere does the commission say how it jibes this official pronouncement with, say, the First Amendment's right to speak freely, not to mention the limited powers granted the federal government by the U.S. Constitution.
http://news.com.com/2061-10804_3-5884130.html
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