Spy vs. Skype

One of the greatest things I’ve done in the past year is ditch the nasty hateful bastards that run my local phone company. Thus, I no longer have a ‘land line’. Instead I use my cell phone and internet-based telephone service, via my cable broadband connection. The upshot is that, by virtue of being VoIP, my calls are not subject to NSA wiretapping. Of course, never a group bound by the law, the government snoops are battling to force VoIP providers to submit to their spying ears. Luckily for me, I use Skype – which just last month made their SkypeOut outbound calling feature totally free. What could their motivation be? Here’s one possible explanation:

[It could be that making Skype calls free] has a lot more to do with avoiding wiretapping regulation. First off, by being free, the company can make a stronger argument that the rules shouldn’t apply. [... Secondly,] Skype might just threaten to turn off SkypeOut, rather than comply — and the larger the userbase at that point (free or not), the angrier those folks are likely to be, potentially creating a larger political problem for those supporting CALEA enforcement on Skype.

Not only have I escaped the hegemony of a global telephone monopoly, but by virtue of abandoning land-based phone service (at home only, of course), it seems I have managed to escape surveillance of my phone calls. It’s almost like not living in a police state.