Gonzales Wants ISP Data Retention To Curb Child Porn 454
$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.
Privacy for the Incidental (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for catching the distributors of child pornography. I hope they find all the freaks exploiting these children.
However, I know that they never stop there. If they have the information they won't use it for just investigating cases of child pornography. Furthermore, I don't trust their techniques of catching the predators.
Many years ago (1998, or 1999) there was a crackdown on the alt.binaries.erotica.* groups to catch distributors of child pornography. Instead, what they did is arrest hundreds of people victimized by the distributors. Sure, many of those hundreds were intentionally seeking pictures of children. But many others were falsely accused because they blindly downloaded "all new articles."
The way this happened was quite simple... Much like the spambots of today, these distributors taint many, many groups with their filth. It's a sort of scorched earth policy, perhaps. Regardless, I don't trust the government to know the difference between the incidental versus the intentional.
The primary reason being the weapon they would potentially wield against people that choose to speak out...
"Oh, look, in 2002 you downloaded DSC_1000.JPG from a newsgroup, and it was depicting an unclothed child... LOCK 'EM UP!"
Privacy protects the innocent too, you know...
Root Password to the US Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time you hear... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its almost like "I'm not a racist, but..."
Re:Root Password to the US Constitution (Score:3, Insightful)
Must have been too long...
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:4, Insightful)
Abusing children is the most horrible crime (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's really about CP, they'd say it in the law. (Score:5, Insightful)
In Soviet America (Score:3, Insightful)
Massive Cost (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm appalled at the invasion of privacy. Practical side of this bad idea is very troublesome as well. Gonzales must think there is data retension fairy that will do all of this for him.
Who was the holdout state AG? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who was the lone holdout state attorney general who didn't sign on to this executive branch power grab? I'd like to consider moving to that state.
-Isaac
if you don't have anything to hide... (Score:5, Insightful)
And their logic is always "If you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about". To which I say, "If I don't have anything to hide, why do they need to spy on me?"
Is it really a growing threat? (Score:5, Insightful)
The growing threat of child porn? Is it really that big of a threat?
I've surfed the tubes and found some pretty perverse pr0n, but I have never run across any child porn. I have absolutely no clue how anyone could even go about finding the stuff. And yet, Gonzalez and the gov't claim it is a huge threat. A threat so great that we must intrude on the privacy rights of all law-abiding citizens. Do we have any real evidence to back up the claim that child porn is such an enormous threat that we must take extraordinary measures? No, we don't.
We have to take the government's word for it, because no one is allowed to independently research child porn. To do so would violate the law. I've heard that the amount of new child porn material has increased in the past few years. Conversely, I've also heard that all of the child porn that's out there is the same old material that has been circulating around for 20 years. But we have no way to know for sure. The government keeps a database of child porn for themselves, and prosecutes and harshly punishes anyone that so much mistakenly downloads an image in their browser cache.
This push by Gonzalez to mandate ISP data retention smells very fishy, especially considering that we, as citizens, have no way to verify that child porn is as serious a problem as he claims.
Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
The main issues stated are:
1) It hurts children to make it.
2) It causes people to want the real thing.
The first is obviously not what they are after, since:
1a) They go after the consumer with full force, when this helps little. (It only helps the content creator only if he sells it.)
1b) They go after voyeuristic photos and "model" shoots. The amount of actual CP where the child is hurt has never been shown to be significant.
The second reason, has never been proven either:
2a) The is an equal and opposite force that people would release tension through this, instead of going after the "real" thing.
2b) Pedophilia is defined as a mental disorder, so "normal" viewers will shouldn't be affected by it anyway. Only someone who already wants it, and doesn't know it, would be affected. This is most likely not a significant amount of people.
As such, i believe the real reason is not any of those given above. But until it is delineated, and the laws address it by protected people from harm (that is, make sure there is an actual (potential) victim as opposed to regulating behavior) there should be no barring of CP different from the Adult version. And, as for invading privacy, that's is going to take a lot more doing than this vagueness.
Key words: Data Retention (not child porn) (Score:5, Insightful)
Child porn is just the catch phrase they can use to ram it through congress.
I can see the campaign ad -- "Congressman X voted against protections from child porn!"
Child Porn My Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a few boogiemen that never seem to fail those that would take our freedoms. Terrorists, Kiddie Porn, Welfare Moms, Liberals and Bill Clinton are some of the most reliable. A few decades ago it was "Satan Worshippers" "Communists" and "Castro" that were the standbys.
Anybody else sick of this BS?
We respect civil liberties but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about retaining info on gov't employees? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think all communications with attorney generals, congress persons, cabinet members, etc should all be retained, reviewed, and utilized when corruption is evident. That'll keep our children safe!
How about this... (Score:3, Insightful)
2. put together servers and software that can monitor ISP lines
3. provide servers and software to ISPs at no cost
4. ISPs only report on those that are going to those sites.
5. haul in the asses of those who are guilty of visiting said sites
OR
1. create a list of sites that they find are exploiting children
2. take down those sites
3. everyone is happy
Yes, I know there are a lot of those sites that are 'offshore' but I can assure you, it isn't from experience.
Re:Moo (Score:2, Insightful)
This is particularly the case in the UK, where now, even fake sexual images of child are illegal. Yes, it's illegal to make images of women look younger, even if you have no intent to distribute these images: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/4776123.s
Basically, liking women with small breasts, shaved pussy and school uniforms is a crime in the UK, and considered equivalent to raping babies, irrespective of any harm actually done. This undermines any attempt to actually combat genuine crimes of child abuse.
want to find it (Score:3, Insightful)
How many cases? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean are we talking tens? hundreds? thousands? more?
-- Should you believe authority without question?
Re:Is it really a growing threat? (Score:1, Insightful)
This is not as clear-cut of an issue as you may think. In a 2002 decision, the Supreme Court held that virtual child porn is legal, because no actual children were harmed in its production.
In 2003, however, Bush signed into law the PROTECT Act, which criminalizes any virtual or manipulated image that is indistinguishable from a real image.
If they were "obviously" photoshopped images, then you are correct in that they were most likely legal. But you can imagine what fun a think-of-the-children judge and jury would have with the word "indistinguishable". And remember, with this sort of heinous crime, you are basically presumed guilty as soon as you are accused.
The fact that someone can go to prison for many years based on possession of an image not depicting any real children is extremely disturbing, to say the very least.
Re:Child Porn My Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
"Jim Davis voted AGAINST a bill that would have protected CHILDREN from dangerous preditors and pedophiles..."
Re:want to find it (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course your link could be some sort of joke, a link to pictures of baby elephants or something, but I guess I'll never know.
I have a better idea, Mr. Gonzales ... (Score:5, Insightful)
A bit disappointing, really.
Maybe we do need to give up some civil liberties, given the current state of affairs with international terrorism
Furthermore, I absolutely do not accept "child pornography" as good and sufficient cause to invoke yet another massive spy campaign against the American public. If the FBI needs more funds to go after these bastards
I think not.
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe I've just been in science too long but a lot assumptions I used to make about what was right and wrong no longer seem so absolute.
These days the definition of child pornography is pretty broad. It could include a picture of some preschooler playing naked at the beach. Is possession of such a picture the one thing that could justify taking away civil liberties? Or what about porn that involves some 17 year old? If it's totally OK to have an 18 year old in porn then why is having a 17 year old in pron the one thing that will justify taking away civil liberties.
I suspect that what they really mean is that they need to take away civil liberties to prevent young children from being sexually abused. Sexual abuse is definitely a serious problem but I have a strong suspicion that the best way to deal with that is taking a hard look at uncles and priests and little league coaches rather than the Internet.
Let's assume, however, that civil liberties on the internet are really the major cause of sexual abuse. Maybe then it would be OK to curtail civil liberties on the internet. Let's take it a step further, though. If it's bad to sexually abuse a child then it should be really bad to kill a child. It should be even worse to kill a child slowly and painfully (say, starving the child to death). The thing is, thousands of children starve to death every day and most people just sit by and let it happen. Even though there is food within easy reach (in things like stores), they enact and enforce laws that prevent the children from getting that food. It would, after all, be "stealing" for the child to walk into the store and take food off the shelf to save its life. Of course, heaven forbid that anyone be forced to give back to the society that has made their lifestyle possible by contributing some money to help the poor and reduce the number of starving children.
So, I don't know, there's a lot a bad stuff happening in the world and people get all worked up about some things (the sharing of certain digital images on the internet) but then, when it comes to other things (children be forced to die slowly and painfully by the structure of their society), well that really doesn't much seem to matter.
Re:Is it really a growing threat? (Score:4, Insightful)
Reminds me of this other great threat to america, i believe it is called marijuana. The government has told me many times that it is very bad for me, although i cannot find out for myself because it is illegal. Scientist have tried to do independant studies to find out if this "drug" is indeed harmful but the government will not allow them too because it is illegal.
Strange but true..
but isn't that the point the P makes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because something is horrific doesn't mean we should throw out all rational thought. I mean I have people in my life who were affected by molestation when they were children, and I would love to throttle the ones who did it, BUT i would rather we as a society think about this rationally and err on the side of caution rather than execute people on the spot for happening to look at child porn.
The parent makes some good points which seem to be dismissed out of hand (and not modded very high due to it's nature) because we are dealing with children here...
Isn't this the whole thing we are rallying against? Broad sweeping generalizations and laws enacted "because of the children"?
Terorist and child molesters are bad but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Hitting at the consequences and not the cause (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:5, Insightful)
If you arrest people simply for clicking links, and not the people who actually put the links on the internet, what stops a person from putting up links which say one thing but take you to somewhere else, then you get arrested? I mean a spam bot could arrange it so that everyone gets spammed with bogus links and then what?
The way the internet is designed, you don't really know what you'll see at a link until after you see it. The only person who really knows, is the one who actually created the link in the first place.
You may be correct, it likely is not just for kiddie porn, because if people can be arrested for just clicking on a link or downloading a file, it becomes impossible at that point to use the internet safely without falling for some sorta trap or clicking on some sorta link that is illegal to click on, hell a script could make you click on it, a virus could download stuff onto your computer and use it for storage, so you see this is basically ridiculous. This does not mean people will not try to make it the law, as laws don't have to make technical sense whatsoever, but due to how the internet is designed and the culture of the net, if a law like this passes everyone would be guilty, have you ever downloaded an mp3? Of course. Ever downloaded a movie without paying for it?
You see, it's impossible to not be guilty when the crime is downloading. If the crime is uploading, then yes you should be guilty if distributing it is illegal.
Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, you just ignored his entire argument! And since you did so, I'll restate it:
In other words, if they want to stop child porn they ought to:
It's the production that (theoretically) causes harm, therefore it's the production that ought to be illegal.
Re:Is it really a growing threat? (Score:1, Insightful)
Working in an official capacity to track down this kind of stuff to shut it down for a time, I had absolutely no problem finding it via the web. If you don't have a clue, it should take you a couple of hours or less.
Also, it's been a popular pastime of many to label it as something else and serve it out over P2P networks, whether to annoy people or to hide it, I'm not sure. I'm surprised you haven't ended up with some of that stuff thinking full well you were getting something else. Everyone I know has.
This said, I still think the witch-hunt is unjustified.
They should be going after the people who produce this, as well as lobbying for legislation in the countries that permit such material to be produced. Going after the end-consumer does no good, and will merely drive things underground, where it will be harder to track the producers.
There has always been a market for this stuff, and there probably always will be, but there's already enough kiddieporn out there to drown 10 donkeys and a mule, so going after the commercial operators will make it less profitable to be in that business.
Get them where it hurts.
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:1, Insightful)
'We respect civil liberties but we have to harmonize this so we can get more information,' he said.
A friend once told me that the word "but" means: forget everything I just said because now I'm going to tell you the truth. Now, read that quote again
Re:Child Porn My Behind (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:5, Insightful)
By simply having checked their mail that day, every member of congress will have violated the law about recieving and posessing. Under the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 that subjects all of congress to a MANDATORY minimum sentence of 15 years.
That, at least, would do a great deal of good for the country.
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:5, Insightful)
Or hey, how about you just get a court order to search the suspect's computers? Kiddy porn is far too hard to come by for those guys to just delete it after three wank sessions, and chances are you'll even find photos and magazines stashed away somewhere at his place. Same logic applies to the distributors btw; you can't distribute what you don't have.
So there's really no reason to ask for longer data retention for the reasons quoted. That's just a cover story; I wonder what the real story is though...
Use your brain, you twittering nit (Score:1, Insightful)
Most teen/child porn is just naked teens/children, not hardcore. Much of the rest is manual or oral rather than penetrative. One can guess this from the distribution of types of mainstream porn (including late teen porn), even without having seen any CP.
>Under current law, sexual activity with minors is, ipso facto, non-consensual and therefore illegal.
"ipso facto" does not mean what you think
An 18 year old Black in the lowest sixth of Black scores has mental ability similar to an average 11.5 year-old, or a 7.5 year-old Jewish kid in the top sixth of Jewish scores. The dim and ignorant but 18 can consent - the brilliant and knowlegeable but 12 cannot.
So to keep the pretense of meaning to the legal concept of "consent", one would have to fall back on the "emotional maturity" argument - but that does not really fly, either, in those instances when the consent is not naive but based on calm reflection or positive experience.
>..the reasoning behind going after the consumers as well as the producers, is that demand creates supply, and cutting off the demand for child pornography will lower the incentives to produce it (whether or not money is directly involved).
It is wrong to think that even if all production of teen/child porn were stopped, that it would reduce teen or child sex. There is too much out there already on millions of hard drives to in any real way reduce the supply of porn by ending production. The proportion of "illicit" sex acts or even relationships that are ever recorded at all, let alone distributed must be tiny, so no significant sex reduction from that point of view, either.
>Of course everything concerning child porn tends to err on the side of vigorous prosecution, but then it's a pretty horrific crime, so that's understandable.
No, your thinking is all fuzzy - child porn is not a "horrific crime". Some sexual acts may be horrific crimes, but taking or looking at pictures does not add to that. And, as I pointed out most of this is mere nudity rather than sex of any kind, and much of even the arguably non-consentual portion of the sex is manual or oral.
>But do people really have a right to consume something that is illegal to produce?
Digital porn is not consumed. Like all other information porn is a "non-rivalrous good". Translated, you ask: "do people really have a right to look at pictures it is not legal to take because they record acts which are themselves declared illegal based upon a legal fiction invented to suppress forms of speech regarding biological-drive-determined thoughts which the majority find offensive?"
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:4, Insightful)
All that UNTIL AN EXPERT says "oh, wtf, this is just some kid having a bath sent to him by a family member"... too late. The damage would be done.
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Child Porn My Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
It is meant to be an unbelievable lie. It is meant to cause a reaction. Then Ken Mehlman can send out emails to the party faithful telling them how the evil, evil Democrats support child pornography. It was designed to get you riled up so they can use your reaction to inflame their base.
If you think this sounds far fetched, I encourage you to get on the GOP email list. The person who had my email address before me was on it and I haven't unsubscribed. The only thing the Democrats have going for them is almost every single issue and that may not be enough. Things are bound to get very, very ugly.
Re:If it's really about CP, they'd say it in the l (Score:1, Insightful)
You've exactly hit it on the head. Virtually no law regarding data collection has any limit to the uses with for data ostensibly captured for one alleged reason can be used or with whom it can be "shared".
We end up with electronic bridge passes which timestamp your every crossing, down to the second. Next thing you know, without announcement, theyre tracking individual passes for "enhanced traffic control' purposes -- i.e. they track how long individual cars take to go from point A to point B, so they can flash the result on digital signs saying, "Time from this point to Hell's Airport: 18 minutes."
Meanwhile they also slipstream into the system a "feature" allowing any fucking random cop to have YOUR individual car tracked through the city and out into the boonies as far as he wants.
The only real solution is to require that the originally-stated purpose for the data is the sole purpose for which it can be used -- no fucking inventive mission creep allowed without further use-specific enabling legislation. Furthermore, there should be severe and mandatory penalties (with public disclosure) for any mis-use.
Of course they'll have icing problems at Hell's Airport before the rat-fucking government allows any such limitations on their imperial power.
Re:I have a better idea, Mr. Gonzales ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The amount of rights rescinded depended a lot on whether or not you were ethnic Japanese (and one of the strongest supporters of sending the Japanese to concentration camps (using the pre-WWII meaning)was Earl Warren) - many people had their property confiscated (the folks in Handford did not leave willingly - the 90% "war profits" income tax bracket wasn't rescinded until the 1960's.
What's even worse is what happened during WWI - a good part of Orwell's 1984 was inspired by what happened in the US during WWI - the pervasive spying on citizens (it was illegal to say anything negative about the war effort and J Edgar Hoover had over 100,000 people spying on their fellow countrymen) - the government sponsored war rallies (do a search on George Creel and think about where Goebbels got his inspiration for the big lie).
Re:Please, think of the children!! (Score:3, Insightful)
We seem to be missing an important point here... (Score:3, Insightful)
A picture of a naked 14-year-old boy or girl, just standing there in a neutral kind of way, not sexually suggestive at all, is completely legal as an artistic shot. My parents have photos of me as a baby, all nekkid with my little baby wee-wee and everything (curses!!) but I highly doubt they could even be considered remotely illegal.
Now, that same 14-yr-old doing something suggestive or posing in a not-for-kids manner would definitely be considered porn and thusly illegal. I'm not sure what the rules are regarding erotica and minors.
There are many professional photographers who aren't kiddie-pornographers, who take nude photos of their subjects whether they're of legal age or not.. This could also include medical imaging, as well as anything else it could include which I can't remember right now.
I wonder how long before someone uses CGI to make artificial kiddie-pr0n.. "but she's not underage, Your Honor! Right here in the code, her age is commented: Nine hundred." Loopholes, glorious loopholes. Just FYI, IANACP.
--A
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes but going on a shooting spree to exterminate all adults so there's noone left to abuse the children is illegal last I checked. Oh well, guess that means plan B, throwing the children into furnaces so there are no children left to abuse.
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:2, Insightful)
Child porn is disgusting. This is the main reason why goverments use it to cry out for less anonymity online, most people find it disgusting and so will go along with this. If Gonzales had come out and made this announcement saying they wanted to force ISPs to retain this information so that the RIAA / MPAA could hassle more parents over their kids ileagally downloading music / films then the public would laugh him off stage.
Your average parent will certainly react very differently to a potential peadophile threat than to the threat of some huge corporation kicking your door in one morning over something your kids have been doing while you are at work.
5th Amendment and Encryption Keys (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems like this has to have happened before, so there's probably precedent on it somewhere. If you know that by revealing the key, you're going to be incriminating yourself, it seems like you might have grounds for refusal. That would keep you from being charged with contempt. That would also probably allow your spouse(s) to refuse to incriminate you, as well.
I could also see how a court could rule that an encryption key or password isn't "protected speech" though, in the same way that they've curtailed the First Amendment. IMO, I would think that the encryption key is a pretty big piece of evidence in itself, since it's the only way to show that the plaintext came from the ciphertext; thus disclosing a password or key really is testifying against oneself. Not that logic really plays any great role in modern jurisprudence, as far as I can tell.
I've seen discussions about this on sci.crypt and other places, but never a definitive answer.
Re:Privacy for the Incidental (Score:4, Insightful)
Even child porn/abduction/abuse is not so awful that it trumps any conceivable objection to a law that might in some way reduce it. For example, why not pass a law that allows a parent to kill any adult who looks at their child. Don't you know that 99% of child molesterers have seen their victim in the presence of a parent before they molester them?? It's for the children! But, no, of course, that is ridiculously out of proportion and no one would ever seriously propose such a thing. It's not even a good example of humorous legal hyperbole, but it illustrates one thing -- no one is willing to go "to any length" to save the children. There is some cost at which it is no longer worth it.
Exactly how much we're willing to "spend" (maybe "give up" is a better word) to prevent these crimes is up for some debate, but you can't ignore the analysis based on the nature of the crime. Personally, I believe that an abusive oppressive government is a frightening enough thing that we need to keep it on a very tight leash, even at the cost of some heinous crimes going unpunished. "Better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished" is the doctrine -- note that it doesn't go on to say "unless a politician with an agenda believes that innocent man might have abused a child; then let him fry."