Congress May Add Record Requirements to MySpace 343
An anonymous reader writes "CNet is reporting that Congress may be working to extend the record retention requirements they're already working on for ISPs to social networking sites. Sites such as MySpace or FaceBook would be required to hold onto content access records for an unspecified length of time." From the article: "In those meetings, Justice Department representatives went beyond the argument that data retention was necessary to protect children--and claimed it would aid in terrorism investigations as well. During Wednesday's hearing, politicians also claimed that social-networking sites were not doing enough to verify that their users who claimed to be a certain age were telling the truth. (Recent news reports have said that sex predators are using MySpace and similar sites to meet up with teens.)"
Won't someone think of the adults?! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's time we put a stop to these horrible predators.
Land of the free... (Score:5, Interesting)
Rupert Merdock is a marketing genius (Score:1, Interesting)
Verifying age? (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder how politicians expect MySpace to verify a person's age. Perhaps they're going to force them to use the age verification that was used on those OLD Leisure Suit Larry games. If you don't know what I'm talking about, the old Leisure Suit Larry games (I'm talking 286 era) used to ask general knowledge questions before the game started, assuming that a person of 18 years of age or older would be able to answer them, and allow you to play the game if you answered a few questions correctly.
Re:Since when did we all become a bunch of pussies (Score:5, Interesting)
They'll keep spewing this BS to get what they want. In the cold war days, it was communism, now it's terrorism. I wonder what's next...
Where in the Constitution is this allowed? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution this is NOT a function of the US Congress.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitut
And according to the 10th Amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitut
Sometimes things work Sometimes they don't. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why we have the court system to hash this out. Should someone take this up and go to trail over it they can have experts / witnesses / employees / vendors to try to settle this out and show that it's a crazy request that really should have never passed.
I hope it doesn't get that far, but I still have faith in the "system" in order to right this. The reason I say that is, this is the government asking for something to be implimented, not private business asking for something to be implimented. If it were private businesses they would lobby and spend money to make it happen.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
So this means (Score:3, Interesting)
scary...
This ain't France (Score:1, Interesting)
There is the first problem, comparing what should be done in America to what is going on in other countries. We have certain rights called the Bill of Rights that have been being overlooked by people scarried of their own shadow because they think some big bad Muslim is going to kill them and their children. Instead of fighting for real protection instead of an illusion of protection, they stick their heads in the sand like an ostrich.
But as long as all the data isn't being fed directly to the government I doubt there will be many abuses.
I guess he doesn't realize that one, the police are part of the government and that two, it is Homeland Security/NSA/FBI that will be requesting the data. If I use or don't My Space or Facebook is none of your fucking business. It is called the first Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." This falls under peaceably to assemble because people meet here to hang out and make friends online. Lets go to the fourh Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." First you have to have 'probable' cause and not 'possible' cause, then you can issue a warrant to obtain the information. The right of the people to be secure is of the utmost. Nobody has the right to take my papers/webpages or effects/digital content for their purposes.
We have a voice here at
Re:Since when did we all become a bunch of pussies (Score:3, Interesting)
I vote for liberalism.
Re:Something good to retain information on. (Score:3, Interesting)
Or parents can educate their kids about meeting people from myspace, and to be careful about how much detail they put on their account.
It also holds people more accountable to law enforcement too.
Like we don't already have enough laws to turn normal citizens into criminals.
If they have illegal information on there and they "delete" it before the cops see it, they data retention would be the only way for the police to get evidence.
Um, what exactly is 'illegal information'? Are you claiming it violates the law to know something? Wow, that's a pretty hard stance. Lets just solve all of our problems, and put an officer in every home.
Re:My favorite part of the article (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is what I would like to do: set up a giant network of systems using peer-to-peer communication. Have the flows be extremely encrypted, obfuscated, and misleading. Make it look like we're going to great lengths to hide something that must be horribly, terribly awful, but leave a trail just noticeable enough to attract the attention of these folks who would like to "seek out illegal content". Make it the be-all and end-all of honeypots to these folks, and stick in just enough backdoors and flaws to make it crackable. Build up tons and tons of media hype about how the wonderful government is cracking down on these horrible hackers who want to Destroy America and Hurt Our Children.
And, in the end, when the data is exposed... it should all be political speech. Nothing inciting violence, nothing threatening anybody, nothing that could possibly be construed by any sane person as terrorist speech or child-targeting... just essays, articles, and manifestos about the government extending their grasp into our privacy every chance they get. Include in this an essay detailing exactly why such seemingly innocuous data would be so heavily encrypted.
Get the story out, all over the media, about how the government and law enforcement invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars hacking into political speech, trying to silence dissent. Get the media (what's left of it that doesn't roll over on command, anyway) to spread it everywhere. Let every Republican who believes strongly in personal rights and property know just what has happened, and how they are not safe as long as those who would spy on us in order to ostensibly protect us remain in power. Set them up to knock them down.
The problem is that whoever does this would definitely have to accept the consequences. The government spinners would do everything they could possibly do to demonize those responsible. They would be branded as "info-terrorists". They would go to extreme lengths to make the public think these folks were spreading child porn, classified documents, bomb plans (WMDs?). Federal officials would probably plant those very things, so they didn't look like they were trying to crush dissent. The patriots who would do this would have their computers confiscated, their reputations shattered, and would probably have to do jail time. They would essentially be sacrificing themselves for their country.
But imagine what a public outcry it would cause. Can you imagine the headlines? "Government invades privacy of American citizens, tries to silence protest speech."
Re:Verifying age? (Score:3, Interesting)
So if you're 14(?), and want people to find your profile, you lie and say you're older.
And if you're an adult, and you only want friends to be able to see your profile, you lie and say you're younger.
This could be easily solved by simply making public/private a separate option, independent of the user's claimed age.
Re:Since when did we all become a bunch of pussies (Score:1, Interesting)
And what good is that going to do you. Do you think your training is going to do you any good? All your liberties have been gradually eroded by the Bush administration. The US constitution has been desecrated. Free speech and the right to travel without search have been lost... your under surveillance, your country has an out of control national debt...
If there was ever a time to overthrow the Government as is 'your duty' under the constitution, it is now. HOWEVER. You don't have a fucking chance.
Before you could gather even a small team or funding for arms or ammo, you'd be in GTMO. You would be prosecuted with evidence that your not allowed to see. You will not be allowed legal representation. You will not be allowed to attend your own hearing. You will be sentenced to death.
How the fuck are those gorilla skills now?
------------------ Here is your line back...
Re:Where in the Constitution is this allowed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Again, not that I necessarily agree with the Court's decisions, but that's the reality.
Re:Since when did we all become a bunch of pussies (Score:3, Interesting)
However:
"The two "freedoms" are not the same thing." and "the freedom to not be Muslim, to live under something other than the Islamic Caliphate"
I'm sure you will find that many of the freedoms (civil liberties) we take for granted are pretty well opposed to under Islamic Caliphate. The difference between the administrations erosion of our civil liberties and Muslim extremists attacking Western societies is not the religion, the difference is who is in charge once those civil liberties are gone. Religion is just a mask and a tool, used to hide the ambitions and give a political movement a manifest destiny. I stand by my statement that the enabling goals of both groups are the same (reducing freedom) and the objective goals only differ in who stands on the podium once the smoke settles.
-Rick
Right to anonymity (Score:3, Interesting)
Errr, didn't you get the memo? The 10th amendment is moot in light of the commerce clause.
Seriously though, while I think much of the reaction to this is a tad melodramatic, the potential for legislation like this to be enacted is exactly why it's important to help privacy-enhancing technologies reach critical mass -- e.g. Freenet [sourceforge.net], darknets, and Onion Routers [eff.org].
Eventually, one's right to anonymity will only be secured by technological means, since governments will increasingly come together to counter it, regardless of their political philosophy. We should be teaching "ordinary folks" how to use these tools in much the same manner as we'd teach them to avoid phishing scams; their privacy is threatened in both cases.
Re:Where in the Constitution is this allowed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Since 1933 and since the FDR era's broad interpretation of the commerce clause, you might as well pretend that the 10th Amendment doesn't exist.
What ever happened to the small government that Democrats and Republicans once supported back in the founding days? Oh, wait....
Re:Where in the Constitution is this allowed? (Score:3, Interesting)
But even Lincoln violated the Constitution by not allowing the Southern states to secede from the Union. There are other instances of this prior to that I am sure (think national bank) but can't off the top of my head recall any of them.
But, just because the government has a long history of abusing/expanding their power doesn't mean that it should continue. It also doesn't mean it's right. And finally every effort should be made to stop it.
Re:Since when did we all become a bunch of pussies (Score:2, Interesting)
I think they want a global caliphate in the same way we want a global democracy, which is to say it may be a nice talking point, but the logistics of it just don't work.
I don't think this is a smokescreen. I don't think this is an active goal of the islamists. And I don't buy your armchair psychology.
Of course, you may be right, but the threat of a global caliphate is right up there with the threat of "The northern migration of killer bees", which is to say- insubstantial. Now, we face a much higher risk of terrorist violence out of these folks, and I don't mean to trivialize that, but largely we are targetted because we are in their back yard.
I tend to think that our prior strategies of propping up secular authoritarians while encouraging isolation and international political structures was more effective. But then, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan stand out as failures of such policy.
Re:Since when did we all become a bunch of pussies (Score:2, Interesting)
In the 1970s, oh man I miss the seventies. I really REALLY miss the seventies.
We had freedom. Freedom like nobody had before, and certainly like nobody had since. At least, nobody in THIS country.
You could smoke a joint and nobody cared. Not even the cops. Hell, if you got pulled over for spee^H^H^H^Hdriving too slow and they smelled reefer, they'd confiscate it. And smoke it themselves in their squad cars.
Rock and roll... oh man, like never before. Zepplin, Floyd, Hagar, Nugent...
And sex. Oh man, the sex. There were no untreatable STDs! We had myrad forms of birth control (many now gone, like the IUD) AND abortion had just been legalized. You could walk up to any woman you knew and say "wanna fuck?" without getting slapped or arrested! And chances were she'd say "sure, wanna smoke a joint first?"
Hell, even if you were a cowardly nerd who couldn't bring himself to ask a girl if she wanted to fuck, they'd ask YOU! I shit you not, young man. All true.
Then Reagan started his war on (some) drugs; the same war Nixon had tried to wage before being shooed out of office. And AIDS reared its ugly head.
The last time a woman asked me "wanna fuck?" was maybe 2 years ago, I couldn't because I didn't have a twenty in my pocket. AIDS killed the Free Love movement. It's harder than hell to get laid these days, especially if you're an old nerd who remembers the seventies.
And a thought struck me so hard I still have a knot on my head - I've only known ONE person who has died of AIDS. And he was gay.
AIDS isn't a sex disease, it's a BLOOD disease. You get it from sharing needles or from sodomy, as the anus wasn't exactly engineered to have stuff shoved up it. If someone with AIDS sodomizes you, you're probably going to catch it whether you're a man or a woman. Anal Intercourse Death Syndrome, one guy I knew called it.
If you suck on someone's cock or lick someone's pussy who has AIDS you're probably going to catch it, because you've probably got at least one dental cavity, or have burned your mouth at McDonalds, or have gum disease.
The only way to catch AIDS from straight penis vagina sex is if you have a scratch on your pecker or in your pussy.
Hell, I'm 54, I'm more likely to die of a heart attack in the middle of the sex act than catch AIDS from it. Well, actually I'm not likely to get laid at all... God I miss the seventies!
But the media and politicians still keep pushing the AIDS scare. How many heterosexuals do you know personally (Isaac Asimov and the guy from Queen don't count; you didn't know Asimov personally and Freddie was teh ghey and you didn't know him either) who have died of AIDS? Now how many do you know who have died from strokes, heart attacks, cancer, or car wrecks?
The parent poster is right. "cold calculated fear manipulation by those who will get infintite power and endless wealth making people 'safe' from nearly nonexistent threats."
We're nerds, we shouldn't be listening to this bullshit. We're supposed to be able to think for ourselves.