Between Einstein and Mueller's Plan, Will the FBI Monitor the Cyber-highways?
The current FBI Director, Robert Mueller, is suggesting an Internet surveillance plan that would allow the FBI to monitor Federal-government networks and private-sector networks. The plan was presented to the House of Representative Judiciary Committee last week and it seems to have the support from some U.S. Congressmen. This article describes Mueller's "Omnibus Internet-Monitoring" proposal and its possible Constitutional concerns.
Current FBI Director, Robert Mueller, is proposing a federal law that would allow the FBI to monitor both federal-government and private-sector networks. The proposal was presented before the US House of Representative Judiciary Committee and as Mueller explained, this law would "balance on one hand, the privacy rights of the individuals who are receiving the information, but on the other hand, given the technology, the necessity of having some omnibus search capability utilizing filters that would identify the illegal activity as it comes through and give us the ability to preempt that illegal activity where it comes through a choke point." Even though this Internet monitoring plan is just a suggesting law from the FBI, it seems to have support from some Congressmen, especially after consideration of the current Einstein Program.
The hearing at which this monitoring plan presented was held to discuss President's Bush Einstein Program. The Einstein Program is a cyber-security initiative that proposes to assign $152 million into cyber-security to protect federal-government networks. Einstein Program is going to be handled by the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team and it will monitor the network gateways of 13 federal government agencies (including the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, etc.) to detect any illegal traffic or suspicious activity. The Einstein Program looks for malicious codes in e-mails attachments and orders collection of traffic flows that are later analyzed by government experts.
Mueller's proposed Omnibus Internet-monitoring plan (still at its conception stage) raised concerns about its constitutionality and effects on the privacy rights of the American citizens just as President's Bush Einstein Program does. If the Einstein Program, specifically designed to protect federal-government networks, has raised concerns about its effects on the rights of the American citizens, Mueller's far reaching monitoring program will definitely raised more privacy concerns.
Mueller's proposed Internet surveillance law will challenge the Constitutional Fourth Amendment right from unreasonable search and seizures. Currently, American citizens enjoy protection against unreasonable searches, even related to communications, without a search warrant order. Hence, just as this proposed surveillance law deserves careful drafting as to compromised-privacy rights, it also requires additional 'thoughts' (as Mueller expressed) on the specific networks that would be monitored or protected.
Will Mueller's proposal follow Einstein's and are American ready for this type of monitoring? This will definitely be the topic of the century. Are American ready to be monitored in this way? Americans are not probably eager to be scrutinized on this way at this time but they may be willing to claim Internet protection or security some years from now. Internet has become so much part of our lives that it is not hard to envisioned 'cyber-patrols' in the near future. As any police or government intervention in a democratic nation, rules are to be placed; including a re-design of Miranda rights for this cyber-era.