Too Secure

It shouldn't be surprising that security is at the top of everyone's mind today, given the parallel concerns insurers have demonstrated with enterprise risk management.

It's good to know that our information is getting more secure--and that the people handling our data are so concerned with security--but who would've thought it was getting too secure? The government, that's who.

An article written by Charlie Savage in the New York Times this week touches on the plans the federal government and national security officials are presenting to create new regulations for the Internet, giving government officials the ability to wiretap criminals and suspected terrorists who are communicating online instead of by telephone.

Savage writes: "Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct "peer to peer" messaging like Skype -- to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages."

(I guess many of today's criminals have been sitting around watching old episodes of The Wire, so they know well enough to stay off their cell phones. But maybe Stringer Bell should have had the Barksdale crew using an encrypted BlackBerry.)

The Obama administration is prepared to present the new legislation to Congress sometime next year. They are trying to sell it as a continuation of their efforts to conduct surveillance over telephones--land lines and wireless. Not everyone is overwhelmed by their argument, though.

Savage quotes James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology: "They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet. They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function."

It's tough to argue about individual freedoms these days in the face of a government that only needs to throw out words such as "terrorism" and "security" to win their arguments with the general public.

The communication technology we use today may be new, but the fears generated by 9/11 are old and longstanding.

So, while business and technology leaders continue to obsess about security, the government will be fighting to make things a little less secure for individuals by making the Internet more secure for the country.

Kind of gives you a headache, doesn't it?