FBI quietly forms secretive Net-surveillance unit

CNET reports: The FBI has recently formed a secretive surveillance unit with an ambitious goal: to invent technology that will let police more readily eavesdrop on Internet and wireless communications.

The establishment of the Quantico, Va.-based unit, which is also staffed by agents from the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Agency, is a response to technological developments that FBI officials believe outpace law enforcement’s ability to listen in on private communications.

While the FBI has been tight-lipped about the creation of its Domestic Communications Assistance Center, or DCAC — it declined to respond to requests made two days ago about who’s running it, for instance — CNET has pieced together information about its operations through interviews and a review of internal government documents.

DCAC’s mandate is broad, covering everything from trying to intercept and decode Skype conversations to building custom wiretap hardware or analyzing the gigabytes of data that a wireless provider or social network might turn over in response to a court order. It’s also designed to serve as a kind of surveillance help desk for state, local, and other federal police. [Continue reading…]

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2 thoughts on “FBI quietly forms secretive Net-surveillance unit

  1. DE Teodoru

    The more wide-spread minutia the FBI is going to delve into, the more microcephalic will be the “experts” willing to make a career of it. That’s the danger: in 1956, Budapest freedom fighters realized that the dreaded Secret Police that was delving into their every private thought were so dumb that the intellectuals became paralyzed with shame as to how pea-brained was their faithful Secret Police audience. Imagine the moronic selectivity of “data” that will be placed on Obama’s desk. He’ll have to abuse ordinary citizens with fabrications just to justify the budget for this FBI e- info institute populated by otherwise unemployable minds. History is replete with the declining intelligence of the agents of state assigned to bore ever deeper into the minutia of privacy of the citizenry.

  2. Norman

    Ever wonder why we are going in the direction being taken in the U.S.A. today? It used to be that “science fiction” was the stuff of “fantasy”, now, it’s becoming reality. The evil that goes with this, is what we see as well as get. The history of J.Edgar Hover having a file on just about everyone in this country, seems to be coming true. What he did with it, I guess died with his death. What is taking place today, well, “1984”, “The Terminator”, “Fear & Loathing”, our P.O.T.U.S. a war criminal, who knows what else is on rap, surely isn’t good for humankind, especially in this country.

    The really negative part, is all the so-called computer upgrades the the F.B.I. has instituted, only to be scrapped after spending $$$$$ for, continues to this day. It seems anything labeled U.S. Government, with its costs, is one giant “piggy bank” being sucked dry by the private industrial complex.

    The present way of thinking, is another disease that has taken hold here. It remains to be seen whether it will be overcome or will be the final destruction of the so called democracy state called the U.S.A.

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