Here comes BIG BROTHER!
Drug Czar Seeks Deal With Hollywood to Include Anti-Drug
Messages in Films
drcnet.org
(courtesy NORML Foundation, norml.org)
Washington, DC: Drug czar Barry McCaffrey plans to intensify the
Office of National Drug Control Policy's anti-drug media campaign
to include government anti-drug messages in popular movies. At a
House subcommittee hearing this week, McCaffrey announced that he
intends to "leverage popular movies" and to work with studios to
promote films that "responsibly communicate anti-drug campaign
messages." McCaffrey testified Tuesday before the House
Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,
Drug Policy and Human Resources, in support of his office's
National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.
McCaffrey said the ONDCP would not offer government financed
incentives for incorporating anti-drug messages in their scripts,
but would offer tax dollars for "promotional activities and
special events that capitalize on the visibility" of films that
feature such messages. McCaffrey has previously offered payment
to television networks and print publications that include anti-
drug messages embedded in the content.
The NORML Foundation filed a complaint in February with the
Federal Communications Commission alleging the ONDCP program
violates federal anti-payola laws.
(Read USA Today's coverage of ONDCP's new plot at
usatoday.com on the
web.)
================
10. FBI's New Toy Spies on E-Mail, Has Bob Barr "Frightened"
drcnet.org
Meet Carnivore, the FBI's latest advance in its never-ending war
on privacy. Carnivore is a super-fast computer system stuffed
with specialized software designed to covertly search for e-mails
from criminal suspects, MSNBC reported this week.
The Internet wiretapping system was unveiled two weeks ago after
being developed at FBI labs in Quantico, VA. It is called
Carnivore because it can rapidly get to "the meat" of huge data
flows. It replaces an earlier system, appropriately called
Omnivore, which could suck in as much as six gigabytes of data
every hour, but in a less discriminating fashion.
The FBI said it has used Carnivore in fewer than a hundred
criminal investigations so far. They were predominantly
investigations of suspected hackers, drug traffickers or
terrorists. But it has at least 20 Carnivore systems on hand,
"just in case."
Carnivore is raising hackles in the Internet world because it
must be hooked directly into Internet service providers' (ISP)
networks. That gives the government the ability, at least
theoretically, to scan all communications on an ISP's network.
Not only e-mail, but also Web surfing and online financial
transaction could be monitored.
Carnivore sits in a locked cage on the ISP's premises, with feds
coming by daily to retrieve the captured data.
Internet wiretaps require a state or federal court order and are
relatively rare now, but are expected to become more prevalent as
use of the Web increases.
Mark Rasch, a former federal computer-crimes prosecutor, told
MSNBC that Carnivore is problematic because it looks at every bit
of data that flows past, so it can decide what needs to be
recorded for police purposes.
"It's the electronic equivalent of listening to everybody's phone
calls to see if it's the phone call you should be monitoring,"
Rasch said. "You develop a tremendous amount of information."
"Once the software is applied to the ISP, there's no check on the
system," said Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), who sits on a House judiciary
subcommittee for constitutional affairs. "If there's one word I
would use to describe this, it would be 'frightening.'"
One recourse for people and organizations worried about FBI
snooping is encryption. Carnivore can still capture the
messages, but it can't read them. If the encryption program is
powerful enough, Internet law enforcement lurkers will be out of
luck.
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