The White House wants to require all Web services that "facilitate communication" to be able to comply with a wiretap order. Officials want to make it easier to wiretap Internet communication, whether it's being conducted via Skype, Facebook or Blackberry. The New York Times broke the story this morning.
The government says it needs this capability because more suspects are using the Internet to communicate, and encryption makes it harder for investigators to go after them. They argue that the legislation is not an expansion of power -- they already have authority to wiretap phones -- and they just want to be able to do the same thing over the Internet.
Privacy experts, though, worry that changing how these services work will make it easier for hackers to intercept others' messages.
