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Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages

Crackberries beware. If your phone is being wiretapped by the feds, or at the state level in California, Arizona and Illinois, to name a few places, your text messages are being read as well.

Chicago Police will start intercepting text messages during their investigations now that Gov. Blagojevich has signed a bill expanding state-authorized wiretaps beyond "oral communication."

Lt. John Rowton of the Chicago Police Narcotics and Gang Investigation Section said the department will dismantle computer software that blocks text messages that are retrieved during state-authorized wiretaps of phones. The feds already have the capability to intercept text messages, but Illinois law had lagged behind other states such as California and Arizona, Rowton said.

"This is a great tool," Rowton said of the new law. "We have done wiretaps where you get a text message at a crucial time and are in the dark. You don't know what you are missing."

This is just another step down the road of intruding on our private conversations in the name of fighting crime. With a wiretap, the listening agents are required to minimize (stop listening) to the call once they determine it is not pertinent to the matter they are investigating. How do they do that with a text message?

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    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    Chicago Police will start intercepting text messages during their investigations now that Gov. Blagojevich has signed a bill expanding state-authorized wiretaps beyond "oral communication." Hummm...let me hear all you libs scream about how the 'right' continues to take away your rights! Blago is a Dem (A one term Dem I might add)

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#2)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    Since they can not stop with a text message, perhaps this is easy to subvert by creating super long text messages with no content to keep them busy; drown them in text. Sad though, I can't bear to imagine what is next.

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#3)
    by jarober on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    Tapping the phone means they got a court order. Which means they had probable cause. Now, are you asserting that the police should have to specifically ask for a court order for each and every type of communication channel a suspect uses? The thing to worry about is whether the police and the judiciary are diligent enough when they ask for taps, not which specific device is being monitored. You are moaning about an utter irrelevancy.

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#4)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    btw, what is a crackberry?

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#5)
    by Jim Strain on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    With a wiretap, the listening agents are required to minimize (stop listening) to the call once they determine it is not pertinent to the matter they are investigating. Thanks for the best laugh of the day. "Gosh, Phil, they're just talking about the weather. We better stop listening." Yeah, right. As for the text messages, though, I have a hard time feeling that this is any more intrusive than listening in on a conversation. At least they have to have a warrant, unlike the dedicated federal warriors in the Global Struggle Against Highly Irritated Non-Christian People who are Inappropriately Religious. . . . jim strain in san diego.

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#6)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    off topic deleted

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    off topic deleted

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#8)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    To those who think tapping text messages is a problem: How do you think the cops should handle criminals who communicate largely through text messages?

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#9)
    by desertswine on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    crackberry n. A BlackBerry handheld computer, particularly one used obsessively; a person who uses such a computer obsessively.


    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#11)
    by DawesFred60 on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    1984, big brother and the right of left...do you know what that means?

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#12)
    by ras on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:58 PM EST
    Well of course they should be able to tap the text messages the same way they do voice calls, and subject to the same restrictions. Otherwise, how long before all terrorists use text exclusively? Yeesh, guys, if you wanna act like the moral betters of society, at least pick your spots.

    Re: Illinois to Start Intercepting Text Messages (none / 0) (#13)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:59 PM EST
    I confess, I am a Crackintosh. Addicted to the Mac.

    From Michael Froomkin at Discourse.net
    Every Cellphone a Walking Bug?
    In what may not be tinfoil, Mark Odell reports in the Financial Times, a reliable newspaper, that in the UK at least, governments can turn cellphones into spy microphones, If ordered to do so, mobile telephone operators can also tap any calls, but more significantly they can also remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner’s knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call, giving security services the perfect bugging device. “We have inadvertently started carrying our own trackable ID card in the form of the mobile phone,” said Sandra Bell, head of the homeland security department at the Royal United Services Institute. The source is “LONDON BOMB ATTACKS: Use of mobile helped police keep tabs on suspect and brother” (sub. req.) published Aug. 2, 2005. It is available on Westlaw (Westlaw acct. req.).
    There are also reports that OnStar, the in-car helper, can also be used to monitor in-car conversations, even when off.