The FBI
wants web developers to build fed-friendly backdoors in all their
applications in order to make domestic spying easier,
reports CNET’s Declan McCullagh:

In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and
U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in
communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it
far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of
illegal activities, CNET has learned.

The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that
the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that
social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant
messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products
are wiretap-friendly.

“If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to
communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding,” a
person who has reviewed the FBI’s draft legislation told CNET. The
requirements apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users
is exceeded, according to a second person briefed on it.

The FBI’s proposal would amend a 1994 law, called
the Communications
Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, that currently
applies only to telecommunications providers, not Web companies.
The Federal Communications Commission extended
CALEA in 2004 to apply to broadband networks.

The FBI has been campaigning for a while to make the Internet
more friendly to federal eavesdroppers, warning of what it calls

the “Going Dark” problem, which refers to the increasing
difficulty the agency is having intercepting and surveilling
Web-based communications. Some folks, I think it’s safe to say,
would not refer to this as a problem.