Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 15:12:24 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <200212202012.PAA20046@multics.mit.edu>
From: belmonte@MIT.EDU (Matthew Belmonte)
To: senator@kennedy.senate.gov
Subject: oppose the National Strategy to 'Secure' Cyberspace

Dear Senator Kennedy

On 2 August 2000 I wrote to you about the FBI's Carnivore system, which
invades the privacy of innocent people by snooping on their Internet
communications.  Today's New York Times
(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/20/technology/20MONI.html) reports that the
Bush Administration's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace contains a
proposal for an Internet surveillance system even more far-reaching and
invasive than Carnivore.  I hope that you'll take steps to block the
implementation of this plan.

According to leaked reports, the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace would
require Internet service providers to help create a centralised facility for
Internet monitoring, one which inevitably would have the capability to monitor
the activities of individual sites and users.  Although initial plans called
for this facility to be run by industry, the final version of the Strategy
specifies that it's to be run by the federal government.  This lack of direct
industry involvement would leave the proposed centre especially open to abuse
by overzealous government investigators.

Again, I hope that you'll oppose plans for a national Internet monitoring
centre as proposed in the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace.

Sincerely,

Matthew Belmonte
[address]