New law could help police with encrypted VoIP phone tapping

I suppose it doesn't matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in power, the U.S. government will always seek to grow its power much like our founding father's feared. The Obama administration is looking at new federal regulations requiring companies to build backdoors into online communications.

Law enforcement agencies like the FBI would have access to encrypted online communications for surveillance purposes. At FierceVoIP we aren't really concerned about whether Obama wants to read your Facebook page, but this push also involves VoIP communications. As more people rely on Voice over IP to make calls, the government wants to make sure its easy to tap those calls to catch the bad guys. With really tough encryption for some online calling offers, the government wants backdoors through the encryption to make tapping easier (or even possible).

Of course there are well established laws on the books already about federal wiretapping and warrants, but in recent years we've experienced 'warrantless' wiretapping and the like so any push to further empower government to eavesdrop should worry consumers, businesses and other less savory elements alike. The new law would prevent businesses from offering completely encrypted services.

Even if the law is not enacted, feel safe in that the FBI can still get a court order to sneak into your office and install key-stroke monitoring software or spyware on your computer when you aren't around.

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