The 2001 Patriot Act in the United States was passed to combat terrorism. One of the main sections of this act was the intelligence gathering method known as wiretapping. Wiretapping is a procedure that is used to obtain information without being detected using a wire or another conductor.
The Patriot Act was enacted just after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, New York. Patriot in this case is an acronym for Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. A court order can be granted to pursue with wiretapping if there is probable cause to believe that a particular offence has been or is being committed. The surveillance will be for a specified period of time. The items usually tapped are the suspects' telephone lines, e-mail addresses and Internet accounts.
If a company is the subject of a court order and they have encoded files, they must decrypt the coded files to satisfy the court order. Section 203 of the Patriot Act allows for foreign intelligence information that is gathered in criminal investigations to be shared with the intelligence community. The information is defined as "information related to capabilities, intentions, or activities of foreign governments or elements thereof and also foreign organisations, foreign persons or international terrorist activities".
In 2000, the United Kingdom proposed a policy that required the retention of communications traffic data for up to 7 years by a centralised government agency. On top of this the European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications supports the creation of data retention laws. In fact this Internet surveillance has been taking place in the United States since April 2000, when the FBI began using 'Carnivore'. Carnivore is an Internet monitoring system that can monitor all browsing by a specified user.
The Patriot Act was enacted just after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, New York. Patriot in this case is an acronym for Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. A court order can be granted to pursue with wiretapping if there is probable cause to believe that a particular offence has been or is being committed. The surveillance will be for a specified period of time. The items usually tapped are the suspects' telephone lines, e-mail addresses and Internet accounts.
If a company is the subject of a court order and they have encoded files, they must decrypt the coded files to satisfy the court order. Section 203 of the Patriot Act allows for foreign intelligence information that is gathered in criminal investigations to be shared with the intelligence community. The information is defined as "information related to capabilities, intentions, or activities of foreign governments or elements thereof and also foreign organisations, foreign persons or international terrorist activities".
In 2000, the United Kingdom proposed a policy that required the retention of communications traffic data for up to 7 years by a centralised government agency. On top of this the European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications supports the creation of data retention laws. In fact this Internet surveillance has been taking place in the United States since April 2000, when the FBI began using 'Carnivore'. Carnivore is an Internet monitoring system that can monitor all browsing by a specified user.
