AT&T Tech Support 360
February 6, 2007 6:40 PM PST
GOP revives ISP-tracking legislation
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Employees of any Internet provider who fail to store that information face fines and prison terms of up to one year, the bill says. The U.S. Justice Department could order the companies to store those records forever.
Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, called it a necessary anti-cybercrime measure. "The legislation introduced today will give law enforcement the tools it needs to find and prosecute criminals," he said in a statement.
A second requirement, also embedded in Smith's so-dubbed Safety Act (PDF), requires owners of sexually explicit Web sites to post warning labels on their pages or face imprisonment. This echoes, nearly word for word, a proposal from last year that was approved by a Senate committee but never made it to a floor vote.
Even though both requirements are central to a Republican-led effort, neither data retention nor Web labeling are that partisan. A Senate committee approved a telecommunications bill that included Web labeling by a 15-7 vote in June. And Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, has been the most vocal proponent of data retention in the entire Congress.
Other bills in the Republicans' "law and order" agenda are related to terrorism, the death penalty, gangs, computer data breaches and drug trafficking.
ISP snooping timeline
In events that were first reported by CNET News.com, Bush administration officials have said Internet providers must keep track of what Americans are doing online. Here's the timeline:
June 2005: Justice Department officials quietly propose data retention rules.
December 2005: European Parliament votes for data retention of up to two years.
April 14, 2006: Data retention proposals surface in Colorado and the U.S. Congress.
April 20, 2006: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says data retention "must be addressed."
April 28, 2006: Democrat proposes data retention amendment.
May 16, 2006: Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner drafts data retention legislation but backs away from it two days later.
May 26, 2006: Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller meet with Internet and telecom companies.
October 17, 2006: FBI director calls for data retention.
January 18, 2007: Bush administration says it will approach Congress for data retention laws.
The legislative fusillade marks the renewal of a political tussle that began in earnest last April, when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called on Congress to target Internet providers with new regulations, which have been generally opposed by telecommunications companies and civil liberties organizations. CNET News.com was the first to report that the Bush administration has been pushing for such a rule privately since mid-2005.
Until this week, however, no formal bill had been introduced in the U.S. Congress.
Supporters of the proposal say it's necessary to help track criminals if police don't respond immediately to reports of illegal activity and the relevant logs are deleted by Internet providers. They cite cases of child molestation, for instance. Industry representatives respond by saying there's no evidence that Internet providers have dragged their feet when responding to subpoenas from law enforcement.
Details about data retention requirements would be left to Gonzales. At a minimum, the bill says, the regulations must require storing records "such as the name and address of the subscriber or registered user to whom an Internet Protocol address, user identification or telephone number was assigned, in order to permit compliance with court orders."
See more CNET content tagged:
Internet provider,
Alberto Gonzales,
legislation,
agenda,
Bush Administration
There are more pressing problems for the Congress to focus on these days.
However, the present trend is that governments are trying to regulate the net by bullying major ISPs in storing user information and usage patterns.
The NetAlter system addresses the problem of unlawful usage of internet in a novel way. It uses IPv6 to uniquely identify a user and assign a unique ID but does not store personal information or content of the user on its servers.
Users can publish information only within their own private networks. That is users of NetAlter can create their own personal network by inviting people they know.
For example activist of Tibet want to create their own personal network, they can do so and publish what they want within their network.
To publish outside their personal network, which is on the Public Network, the users will require revealing their identity and providing verifiable information.
What this means that the activists of Tibet will require identifying themselves if they wish to publish information in the entire NetAlter network.
And what is publicly published on the NetAlter network can be regulated either by government regulatory bodies or other responsible organizations depending on country to country.
In case a private network is engaged in serious unlawful activities and this is brought to the notice of NetAlter by members of the network, action can be taken to suspend the network.
Thus NetAlter offers privacy and freedom of speech at the private network level and offers regulation at the public network level.
NetAlter is under development and is supposed to offer an alternative network to internet users.
This may sound like Gestapo tactics, violations of free speach, and censorship but it is not. Those people who are mature enough and want access to the material will still have access to it. With each and every "RIGHT" there comes responsibility. The responsibility in this case is the responsibility to protect the innocent (children and other minors). My child does not need to view material of the sort that is on these web pages (either by accident or purpose), nor does he need to be innundated by emails of a sexually explicit or violent nature. So we do need laws of this sort, not to violate the rights of adults, but to protect the rights, minds, and bodies of our children.
This may sound like Gestapo tactics, violations of free speach, and censorship but it is not. Those people who are mature enough and want access to the material will still have access to it. With each and every "RIGHT" there comes responsibility. The responsibility in this case is the responsibility to protect the innocent (children and other minors). My child does not need to view material of the sort that is on these web pages (either by accident or purpose), nor does he need to be innundated by emails of a sexually explicit or violent nature. So we do need laws of this sort, not to violate the rights of adults, but to protect the rights, minds, and bodies of our children.
R.S.
Please help vote ALL these morons out of office before they finish destroying our country. As for the idiots that actually think this kind of tripe is a good thing, you need to be voted off the island too. If you want to live like that then go to a muslim run country, they appreciate controlling every aspect of YOUR life. Free thought will be met with censorship and spying. Destruction of anything that shines a light on their so called "values" is a must (something they have in common with the cult of christianity). Remember that evil can't bear to be seen in the light of day (or reason).
...and don't forget to show you papers to the nice man with the gun before you sign on. If you don't have the correct documentation showing you are a proper, morally right citizen, you will be detained and questioned... or maybe just disappear from your home in the middle of the night.
That's what these guys are working toward... vote 'em out!
to how much these requirements are going
to cost? Trillions, probably, to implement
everything they might want, and they won't pay
for it, leaving that stinking pile to
bankrupt the private sector. There goes
most companies, most jobs, and, probably
the 'Net itself. Thanks, D.C.
Are alcohol manufacturers required to track their customers use of their products?
Are auto manufacturers required to track where every customer drives?
Are television manufacturers required to track what you watch on TV?
Why should ISPs tracking their customers be any different than any of these other industries tracking their customers?
fight phishers, crimeware authors, and those involved in child
pornography and other abuses. However, can you image the
privacy and identity theft disaster that would ensue if thousands
of ISPS, big and small, had to start tracking and storing all this
information?
First, most of the thousands of small ISPs in this country would
probably go bankrupt.
Second, you've just created a fertile ground for ID thieves to
steal thousand of databases with your personal information,
email address and web surfing habits. There is no way that all
of these databases will remain secure.
Imagine what a criminal could do with this information....
I know your name.
I know your IP address.
I know which banking and brokerage sites you visit, therefore I
know where you have accounts.
I probably know where you work if you login to a VPN or access
corporate email from an ISP.
I know which hotels you stay in.
I know which auction sites and ecommerce sites you visit or have
accounts at.
Basically, spear-phishing would go through the roof. It would
be impossible to discern real emails from fake ones.
Let's get realistic here, lawmakers. If some of the world's largest
government agencies and ecommerce sites can't keep customer
databases secure, how are thousands of ISPs supposed to do
it???? This idea, while well-intentioned, is a disaster waiting to
happen.
(PS. buy stock in data storage companies).