The FBI, taking a page from our friends at the NSA, has expanded its domestic snooping to include monitoring and recording huge amounts of Internet traffic without specific warrants. The technique, known as "full pipe recording," is an expansion of a program called Carnivore that was discontinued as a result of its constitutionally questionable techniques.
Apparently, rather than abandoning the illegal approach embodied in the old program, the FBI has chosen a new more innocuous name (DCS1000) and expanded its capture of non-criminal Internet traffic. The creation of its new database - and the network analysis and data mining it allows - may enable "lawmen" to go after people who discuss drug use, for instance, after they get done investigating the ostensible target of the original wiretap.
I have also recently learned that the FBI submitted as evidence recordings made from the cellular phones of mobsters while the phones were NOT IN USE. Combined with the GPS and triangulation capabilities of the cell network, this means that law enforcement can precisely determine your location and then listen to any conversations within a 15 foot radius of the cell phone sitting in your pocket. There is no way to tell if somebody is listening and no way to stop it short of removing the batteries. Experts believe that this technique can be employed even when the phone is turned off, and the government may even have access to images in view of the phone's camera lens.
Your own personal telescreen!
