Gonzales Wants ISP Data Retention To Curb Child Porn

$RANDOMLUSER writes, "The AP is reporting that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Banking Committee today and called for Congress to require ISPs to preserve customer records, asserting that prosecutors need them to fight child pornography. 'This is a problem that requires federal legislation,' Gonzales said. He called the government's lack of access to customer data the biggest obstacle to deterring child porn. 'We respect civil liberties but we have to harmonize this so we can get more information,' he said." Gonzales added that he agrees with a letter sent to Congress in June by 49 state attorneys general, requesting federal legislation to require ISPs to hold onto customer data longer.

Senator Gonzales is behind the times.

[thomasdz]

Child Porn was the boogie man for the period 1997 to 2001
Osama was the boogie man for 2001 & 2002
and finally Terrorism is the boogie man for 2002 to 2006

I'm not sure what the next boogie man for the 2007 season will be but my prediction is "rogue dwarf planets"
(gotta watch them plutons!)

Re:Root Password to the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

...and the alternative is "terrorism".

Re:Root Password to the US Constitution

[glwtta]

There's an "alternative" root password? Oh crap, the Constitution is running on NT, isn't it?

Re:Privacy for the Incidental unneeded by Party

[WillAffleckUW]

Only those who distrust the Party need to have Privacy, comrade!

Are you questioning the God Emperor?

Re:Root Password to the US Constitution

[Tackhead]

> > "Child Porn"
>
> But, I thought it was "war president".
> Must have been too long...

When I was your age, it was "living document". Uphill. Both ways. During a Congressional recess.

Re:Massive Cost

[hoggoth]

> pedabytes of information

or in this case "Pedo-bytes" of information...

Re:Privacy for the Incidental

[Anonymous Coward]

stumbled on a bunch of nekkid kids wearing boxing gloves

Naked kids!?!? That's absolutely horrible! No child should ever be naked, because the naked human body is a disgusting, vile thing.

Re:Massive Cost

[tsm_sf]

It's people like you that block my internets from arriving on time.

Re:Root Password to the US Constitution

[maxwell demon]

Yes, that's why there are so many exploits. They mainly use buffer overflows in the incoming money interface. That is, put enough money to the correct politicians, and you'll control the government.

Re:Privacy for the Incidental

[FLEB]

stumbled on a bunch of nekkid kids wearing boxing gloves.

So? Are you saying you're against fighting child porn?

Why not just put a chip in all cameras?

[elucido]

I don't see how tracking everything on the internet fights childporn. If every owner of a camera had to register their camera to use it, or if anyone who hooks it up to the computer after taking pictures could be tracked, you could figure out exactly where the pictures came form.

However, if it's just about searching all ISP's in the world, I just don't think that it's believeable that it would be for child porn. Child porn comes from cameras, not the internet itself, so whoever is putting these pictures on the internet, these are the individuals who should be tracked and arrested. If you just search ISPs, how does this do any good? Every picture taken by a specific camera should have indentity information inside it. No one should be able to annonymously take a picture and post it on the internet, stop child pornography at the source, otherwise it's not going to do much good. Data retention might tell you who has looked at child porn, or even who originally uploaded it in some cases, but this does not lead anywhere unless you can get to the asshole who actually commited the crime of creating the child pornography.

So this law would be like trying to go after file sharers individually, in the end it gets no where because unless you know where the files came from you are chasing 1s and 0s. So I think the best idea is, all pictures taken by a digital camera and uploaded onto a computer, should REQUIRE indentity information, it should be encoded into the images themselves, if we have to we can make camera owners register their cameras, otherwise what good does this law do?

I think, I'd rather Gonzales just come out and say we need to have surveillance on the internet and that for national security reasons, all ISPs must have retention. I don't think the child porn is believeable enough, yes it's emotional enough but unless they can show people how this law protects children, it just does not connect.

Re:Root Password to the US Constitution

[syousef]

Running on NT? Does that mean MS no longer supports the constitution? Is that a General Protection Fault?

Re:Privacy for the Incidental

[Sfing_ter]

this is already happenining, everytime I click on a link for "Windows Security" I get take to the Microsoft website, and I KNOW that's not possible.

Re:Politics != Marketing?

[jschrod]

Yes, of course.

Marketing is a honest task.

Yes but...

[KDR_11k]

How do you type with boxing gloves on?