You know, when I hear a title such as FBI Director, I instantly think about someone who is well versed in all type of crimes, their prevention and that, of course, knows how not to be duped by anyone of malevolent intentions. Am I right? I mean in order to be the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, you have to think about a person who knows how to spot a crook, a plot, a ploy and even a phishing scam a mile away, right? Well, have I got a story for you!

It seems FBI Director Robert Mueller (AKA Head Honcho of one of the most powerful institutions on the planet) recently told the Commonwealth Club of California that he remembered receiving an e-mail that seemed to originate from his bank, announcing him that his account status needed confirmation. He proceeded to answer the questions in the e-mail but stopped when he reached the question regarding his user name and password.

According to SFGate, Mueller recalled that “My wife said, 'No more Internet banking for you'!” Now, I'm not one to be mean but, when you're the chief of the FBI and your wife makes fun of your Internet browsing skills, I think question marks should arise. Such as, what am I doing leading an agency that deals with matters of security? I mean, Ok, such anecdotes are amusing, but when you think that terrorists have been using phishing scams to finance their activities, you cannot but wonder exactly how much of those actions were funded by persons such as Mister Mueller.

One interesting response from the persons attending came out like this “I'm not worried about a teenage hacker reading my e-mail. I'm worried about you reading it,” referring, of course, to Bush's order that allows for electronic surveillance without a warrant. Muller's response was “I would worry about that teenage hacker so much more than you should worry about us.”

And he is completely and utterly correct. How could anyone worry about Robert Mueller, a person who can't tell a scam e-mail from the real deal hacking and eavesdropping of our conversations? However, taking the matter out of context and referring strictly to the law itself, I can't think of a better book to describe government eavesdropping better than George Orwell's “1984.”


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