FBI Can Spy on Skype and other Wireless Communications

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is ready to launch a surveillance unit capable of spying on Skype conversations and other Internet communications.

The Domestic Communications Assistance Center (DCAC) is a group effort between the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, and the Drug Enforcement Agency. All three agencies are building customized hardware for wiretapping wireless and internet conversations per court order requests.

“It’s also designed to serve as a kind of surveillance help desk for the state, local, and other federal police,” CNET has reported. “The center represents the technological component of the bureau’s ‘Going Dark’ Internet wiretapping push, which was allocated $54 million by a Senate committee last month.”

The DCAC has been very secretive about its purpose. The FBI said in a state that the organization will “not be responsible for the actual execution of any electronic surveillance court orders and will not have any direct operational or investigative role in investigations.”

Finding illegal activity on the web has become the top priority for the FBI. In January the FBI stated it was seeking to develop an automatic mass-monitoring computer application to analyze social media sites for crime-related comments.