Flutterby™! : Surveillance 2006-04-28 05:05:39.966749+00

Surveillance

2006-04-28 05:05:39.966749+00 by Dan Lyke 7 comments

An anonymous correspondent who works for a state community college tells me that the preliminary budget for next year contains a line item for CALEA Requirements: "As required by federal law, modify data and voice system so law enforcement can easily wiretap into our electronic communications system. — $ 40,000".

I feel safer knowing that several student's tuitions will be spent on better eavesdropping capabilities.

#Comment Re: made: 2006-05-02 05:32:34.329832+00 by: Shawn [edit history]

Higher ed fears wiretapping law has quite a bit more info and back-story, including mention of a petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

I, personally, am very pleased by the phrasing that the writer clearly succeeded in slipping into the budget.

HAHAHA! I guess it's been quite some time since you priced college tuitions, eh Dan? Having one already there and one heading into the fray a year from now, I have to say you're off by a large factor, if you're talking about more than two students and/or other than, say, community college or in-state UCs.

It's a community college, and I don't want to give away too much of location and I don't know too much about the specifics of the school, but my guess is that actual budget divided by number of students could be sub $13k, might even be sub $10k. As I was reminded on my recent trip back to the southeast, not everywhere is Bay Area or Northeast prices.

Yeah, I've priced tuitions recently in looking at some of Zack

's school choices...

Frightening, isn't it. And that's coming from someone who started having money deducted from every paycheck to buy savings bonds for each kid when he was two weeks old, no joke. (I did later switch to a different college funding model, but they had barely opened their eyes before I started saving for their college costs, and even *I* am reeling. The next 3 years are gonna be rather hellacious on my bank accounts...)

#Comment Re: made: 2006-05-05 21:23:32.421648+00 by: Shawn [edit history]

This particular line item has been removed from the budget - for the time being.

Yes, I was the anonymous correspondent. At the time of discovery and posting, I was unclear as to whether the information fell under public information statutes yet I felt it was something that people needed to know about. Since then I have learned that I am not the only individual on campus expressing concern. The most recent information is that the item was removed "due to the uncertainty of the timing and requirements for this project at this time".

Sorry, I can't clarify the budget-to-student ratio question. I normally don't pay much attention to budgets - this is one I just happened to decide to scan to see if anything was going to potentially impact our department.

I can say that, although we are a community college, we are the largest single college in the state - and the 3rd largest college overall.

#Comment Re: made made: 2006-05-07 16:58:45.983202+00 by: donovanpax [edit history]

Freightening? We've been saving for years, as well (we have 3 years of saving left). Our child has has narrowed her choice of colleges to 2: NYU and...NYU. By my calculations, 3 years from now we'll have saved enough $ for the first 17 minutes of her college career. In addition, as of May 5th, I've saved enough $$$ for my next visit to our local Citgo station.