Tim Wu: The government has conferred its blessing on monopolies in information industries with unusual frequency. Sometimes this protection has yielded reciprocal benefits, with the owner of an information network offering the state something valuable in return, like warrantless wiretaps.
Decius: We need to balance privacy interests with the state's interest in monitoring suspected criminals. What you tell Google you've told the government.
Charlie Savage: Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, traveled to Silicon Valley on Tuesday to meet with top executives of several technology firms about a proposal to make it easier to wiretap Internet users. Mr. Mueller wants to expand a 1994 law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, to impose regulations on Internet companies. Under the proposal, firms would have to design systems to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages. Services based overseas would have to route communications through a server on United States soil where they could be wiretapped.
US-China Economic and Security Review Commission: Nearly 15 percent of the world's Internet traffic -- including data from the Pentagon, the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other US government websites -- was briefly redirected through computer networks in China last April. Computer security researchers have noted that the capability could enable severe malicious activities.
John Givings: Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.
Eric Schmidt: You get a billion people doing something, there's lots of ways to make money. Absolutely, trust me. We'll get lots of money for it. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
FBI Seeks Wider Wiretap Law for Web | 
