Making a buck off government spying.
article by http://www.guerrillanews.com
Recent moves to beef up intelligence gathering in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks have civil libertarians concerned that law enforcement agencies will entangle many law abiding citizens and social justice groups in their surveillance missions. Intelligence networks are setting their sights on the Internet, which up to now has had no clear privacy guidelines. Under the provisions of the inaptly named anti-terrorism act, “USA-PATRIOT,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and a number of other smaller law enforcement agencies are looking for ways to monitor the Internet and mine useful intelligence from it. And new technology makes it easier than ever to spy on the Internet.
Although law enforcement and intelligence agencies claim they are merely looking for information to counter future acts of terrorism, the definition of “terrorism” is being expanded to cover non-violent groups that have traditionally used the Internet to marshal resistance to corporate-inspired globalization. Politicians are already painting dissent as “unpatriotic” and therefore somehow linked to terrorism.
Meanwhile, a phalanx of software companies, consultants, and defense contractors stand to reap billions of dollars over the next few years by selling surveillance and information-gathering systems to government agencies and the private sector.
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