Internet phone calls are crippling fight against terrorism

[napi21]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4951864.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=crickler

The huge growth in internet telephone traffic is jeopardising the capability of police to investigate almost every type of crime, senior sources have told The Times.

As more and more phone calls are routed over the web – using software such as Skype – police are losing the ability to track who has called whom, from where and for how long.

The key difficulty facing police is that, unlike mobile phone companies, which retain call data for billing purposes, internet call companies have no reason to keep the material.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, outlined plans yesterday for a huge expansion of the Government’s capability to access data held by internet services, including social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo, and gaming networks.

Ya gotta love the web! Seems it's put a kink in Georgie's spy plans!

[Richard D]

1. Nothing the phone companies would like better . . .

. . . than to get rid of internet telephony.

Hmmm, didn't Verizon put up some cell towers on McShames ranch recently - for no charge?

[Selatius]

2. Obviously, at this point, the federal government can do what local police cannot do.

Spy on people's email and VOIP calls and so on.

[dbonds]

3. Wait till they find out about Ventrillo

[Solly Mack]

4. Gee, let's have another FISA re-write and expand it even more for spying

[kestrel91316]

5. All this means is that the government will work harder than ever to figure out

a way to completely shut down the internet at will, or deny the average citizen access altogether. Or maybe they will require all computers to have software in them that monitors all phone call data and transmits it to a government database.

Don't tell me they don't wish they had that.

[snappyturtle]

6. I have Magic Jack ad love it! Since I live cross country from my

'kids' and aging Mother, it is wonderful I can call anytime and talk a long time for pennies. I think the bill for two years was about forty dollars.

[napi21]

7. I have MagicJack too. I got it about 1 1/2 months ago. I'm very

happy with it and THRILLED that I could finally tell the landline phone service provider to take a flying leap! The cost was $49 for the first year and included the MagicJack. Subsequent years cost $20 for the WHOLE YEAR'S service, and there's NO longdistance charges for calls within in US and very minimal charges for International calls. I still haven't figured out how MagicJack makes any money, but that's not MY problem.

[snappyturtle]

8. We paid seventy odd dollars but that was for the jack itself, shipping

and two years service. I don't know how MJ makes money either but I love the fact they've cut out the phone company. We live in a rural area and our long distance carriers offerred nothing in the way of reasonable, so MJ is a Godsend.