That our intelligence agencies can intercept adversary communications is largely a given, they just want to do it from the convenience of the homeland, not some remote switch in the darkest hinterlands.Tanji doesn't talk as much in his post about the FBI's desire to spend $1 billion setting up a giant biometric database, which he also links to, but his post's general point applies: the fact that the FBI and other US agencies are trying to suck in huge amounts of data is worrisome as it suggests they have no ability to target their collection efforts on specific targets (for example, through human intelligence).
I agree, but the FBI's desire for this giant biometric database worries me for privacy reasons as well - not because I fear the next Hoover setting up a police state (although it's always a possibility), but because such a database would be a goldmine for hackers, criminals, etc. The value in this type of database would be dependent on the ease of access to it - if nobody can get into the database, it's useless. The way I see it, the FBI would be gathering up a large amount of data and presenting it to Russian cybercriminals.
Plus, who will actually run the thing - the FBI themselves, or some contractor who hires numbskulls? The FBI is a law enforcement agency, not an intelligence agency - they might very well decide to outsource this as its not their core function. Even intelligence agencies who's job it supposedly is to maintain intel databases outsource the actual databases to contractors, like when CIFA outsourced TALON to Booz Allen.
But of course, since it's the FBI, the thing probably won't work anyways.
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