ISP Snooping Bill

[Aslanna]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20084 ... ping-bill/

Internet providers would be forced to keep logs of their customers' activities for one year--in case police want to review them in the future--under legislation that a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved today.

The 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall's elections, and the Justice Department officials who have quietly lobbied for the sweeping new requirements, a development first reported by CNET.

A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, some committee members suggested. By a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.

It represents "a data bank of every digital act by every American" that would "let us find out where every single American visited Web sites," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who led Democratic opposition to the bill.

Lofgren said the data retention requirements are easily avoided because they only apply to "commercial" providers. Criminals would simply go to libraries or Starbucks coffeehouses and use the Web anonymously, she said, while law-abiding Americans would have their activities recorded.

To make it politically difficult to oppose, proponents of the data retention requirements dubbed the bill the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, even though the mandatory logs would be accessible to police investigating any crime and perhaps attorneys litigating civil disputes in divorce, insurance fraud, and other cases as well.

"The bill is mislabeled," said Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the panel. "This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes."

I think it's time to go with a VPN service once this passes... which it probably will. I'm no criminal but I have a problem with everything I do being stored. Big Brother is getting bigger every day. Some people, the dimwits who parrot "If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about", probably wont care but I find it troublesome.

[Boogahz]

I just love the whole "let's make the people that can't safeguard data store even more personal info!"

[Aabidano]

Anyone's use of Tor, etc.. neatly sidesteps the whole thing.

If the intent is really what it's stated to be, it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what's they're trying to control.

Detective work and physical searches will continue to be what catches the people this bill is supposedly aimed at.

[Funkmasterr]

Yeah, I'll definitely be getting a vpn set up here shortly either way, but definitely immediately if something like this passes.

[masteen]

I can't believe something this heinous even made it out of committee. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment, and possibly infringes on 1st and 6th.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

Yea....well Obama's administration does not believe in the Constitution at all.

[Aabidano]

Yea....well Obama's administration does not believe in the Constitution at all.

Carrying on the proud tradition of the last administration then?

[Xatrei]

Yea....well Obama's administration does not believe in the Constitution at all.

Care to explain how a Republican driven initiative being passed out of the Republican dominated Judiciary Committee by an overwhelming Republican vote represents the Obama administration's position on the subject?

[Aabidano]

Care to explain how a Republican driven initiative being passed out of the Republican dominated Judiciary Committee by an overwhelming Republican vote represents the Obama administration's position on the subject?

Delusional people can't be held responsible for their actions?

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

It is pretty much a bi-partisan bill put out by the incompetent retards on both sides of the aisle...and is still under the Obama administration.

Obama and his crew (in several cases a bi-partisan effort) are apparently trying to see if they can trample every single amendment in the Bill of Rights. So far they have passed, or made serious efforts to pass, legislation that conflicts with everything except the 1st, 3rd, and 8th.

[Aabidano]

So nothing that happened under Bush was his responsibility and everything that happens on Obamas' watch is his? You're being inconsistent.

[Winnow]

Astrill > Hide My Ass

"protect the children!" will eventually take all of your rights away. Politicians hiding behind that slogan sicken me.

[Siji]

To make it politically difficult to oppose, proponents of the data retention requirements dubbed the bill the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, even though the mandatory logs would be accessible to police investigating any crime and perhaps attorneys litigating civil disputes in divorce, insurance fraud, and other cases as well.

Another example of the government not really caring about what people may really want, but more caring about what they want. It's really getting old, and the country has gone to shit for it.

[Boogahz]

Euro look at the issue of online anonymity