If the FBI and the Obama administration get their way, your private chats might be subject to new surveillance guidelines that would make the internet a lot less innovative and free.

New York Times:

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau's ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is "going dark" as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

While the F.B.I.'s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department's attention.

Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.

"I think the F.B.I.'s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves," said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren't the same mandates."

Only criminals need worry? Who's to say 10 years from now how the government will define "criminal?" The ever-expanding national security state will find any excuse to monitor wrong thinking citizens, in addition to lawbreakers and terrorists. Just ask that group of anti-war grandmothers who were photographed and experienced other surveillance.

I would like to see the guidelines for surviellanvce on the internet drawn narrowly to prevent intrusive government interference in our private lives. As technology presents more challenges to law enforcement to keep us safe, the law must follow while taking into account the powerful tools that government has at its disposal to curtail our liberty.