U.S. Government Demands ISP Data Retention 355
dlc3007 writes to mention an article in the New York Times discussing data privacy. The article expands on the U.S. Government's 'request' last Friday at a meeting between Robert S. Mueller III, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, and the executives of several Internet Service Providers. The ISPs were required to retain data on users, for trials if subpoenaed. Right now they're asking companies to do this. The threat is that, if they don't comply, legislation will follow. From the article: "The Justice Department is not asking the Internet companies to give it data about users, but rather to retain information that could be subpoenaed through existing laws and procedures, Mr. Roehrkasse said. While initial proposals were vague, executives from companies that attended the meeting said they gathered that the department was interested in records that would allow them to identify which individuals visited certain Web sites and possibly conducted searches using certain terms." We originally covered this last Sunday, but more details have been released on the meeting since then.
Appeals to Emotion. (Score:5, Insightful)
So tell me again....why do the Internet companies have to retain so much data?
From TFA (emphasis mine): Ah yes...yet another shameless use of the 'Lovejoy Gambit'. If you oppose this data retention, you must hate children. You don't hate children, do you?
And once more from TFA: And we segue straight from the 'Lovejoy Gambit' to the '9/11 bloody shirt'. How relentlesly predictable.
Mycarthyism.... (Score:5, Insightful)
We just jumped back 50 years.
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:5, Insightful)
At least he told the truth, perhaps though he should have lied better and said "We want this to *fight* terrorism."
What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see this data being useful retroactively for things like criminal profiling and possibly being valuable for targeted marketing analysis, but not for catching child molesters and terrorists.
Just remember, this is not a fishing expedition (Score:5, Insightful)
Nor are we trying to track where everyone goes or what they read. We're ensuring that everyone is fully protected from those bad, bad terrorists. You know, 9/11 and all.
You see, people want to be free. We're ensuring they can be free by these actions. All we ask is that people understand that we're in it for the long run and ask for their patience while we administer these proctology exams.
Just remember, 9/11 was a wakup call [democratic...ground.com]. We can't let these terrorists take our freedoms away.
Re:What's the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not what it's being used for. It's being used to prove people are child molesters. As in, the think you are a child molestor, show a judge their evidence, get access to your web records. In that sense, it is "retroactive". They aren't, however, doing proactive searches through it to find child pornography.
Re:Make it hard for them (Score:3, Insightful)
This website can be quite a trove of insight.
--
Music should be free [myspace.com]
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Score:4, Insightful)
Death, Taxes and now... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, because people never abuse power. Ever.
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're asking this data be retained so that **IF A COURT ORDERED SUBPOENA IS ISSUED** the information will be available. Worried by that?
Given this administration's shocking contempt for the legal system thus far, yes, I am worried by that. They've collected enough data without having to resort to the 'headache' of due process through the courts...do we really need to make more available to them?
It's quite simple, really. Don't prey on children and don't plan terrorist acts and you'll be fine.
I'll ignore your reference to the Lovejoy gambit and proceed directly to your statement about terrorism. Have you read Patriot Act I and II? If you have, you'd know that the new definition of a 'domestic terrorism' is "any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law". You'd also know that anyone who fits this ridiculously broad definition of 'terrorism' can now be considred an 'enemy combatant' and stripped of their U.S. citizenship and rights. Under current legislation, a person could be legally held indefinitely without trial for something as innocuous as speeding.
If you don't trust the courts to work properly, then your issue is much bigger than this request/legislation.
In that, you're absolutely correct.
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
At the meeting with privacy experts yesterday, Justice Department officials focused on wanting to retain the records for use in child pornography and terrorism investigations. But they also talked of their value in investigating other crimes like intellectual property theft and fraud, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, who attended the session.
"It was clear that they would go beyond kiddie porn and terrorism and use it for general law enforcement," Mr. Rotenberg said.
---- end cite.
The problem with a "surveillance state" is that the collected information can be abused by the people that collect it. And worse: over-zealous law enforcement can find sufficient evidence of a crime anywhere they want, given the vagueness of many statutes.
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:4, Insightful)
Any information that's saved, will be used: if you think it will just be to go after "terrorists" and "pedophiles," you're hopelessly naive. (Or rather, if you think that the definitions of 'terrorist' and 'pedophile' aren't sufficiently vague that they can be easily expanded at will to include pretty much anyone unpopular, you're deluding yourself.)
Reading your comment again I suspect IHBT, though.
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides which, even if people don't prey on children or plan terrorist acts, what's to stop the **AA from using the greater data retention in the next batch of lawsuits? After all, they can get subpoenas too.
Pedos and terrorists are convienient excuses. The number of actual, real, internet predators and terrorists is very very small. Most violent or sexual crime is in no way related to the net - and most terrorists could easly commit crimes using low tech means (like, oh say, boxcutters, maybe?).
And most child molesters aren't random scary strangers - they're people the victim knows and trusts. The best way to limit the number of molested children would be to force people to get a license before having children, and force people in positions of trust with children (teachers, preists, etc) to undergo rigorous psychological testing. What's that you say? That would violate their constitutional rights? Well tough titty - it's for the children, so that makes it OK.
The reason that laws governing the internet get passed, and laws limiting parenthood don't even get proposed, is that the former are politically easy to sell, and the latter would rightly be seen as oppressive and illegal. It's just more examples of politicians crying "oh won't somebody think of the children" as a way to get elected - because politicians are inherently dishonest and lazy.
Another unfunded mandate (Score:5, Insightful)
Priceless.
If and only if (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite your intended meaning, truer words have never been written. Indeed, as you might have noticed, many of believe there might just be a much bigger problem here. So what exactly should we do about it? Well, I figure it makes a whole lot of sense to start by rallying support against this particular request/litigation. That's what this whole democracy thing is supposed to be all about, no? Write your representatives; make sure they actually represent you, and vote them out if they don't.
Worried by that?
Actually yes, and I take it you're not.
Don't prey on children and don't plan terrorist acts and you'll be fine.
Ok, I know now why you're not worried. I guess we're all safe then. The government shall protect us from all the bad people. Ah, the good old "if we have nothing to hide then we have nothing to fear" rhetoric. I'll see your trite remark, and raise with a "let them put cameras in every room of your house" counter. By the way, it's not at all a bluff; I don't think you've been paying much attention to the control some parts of the government have been trying to exert over the populace (yes, I said control; ubiquitous monitoring is a natural first step).
High potential for abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
Law enforcement agencies love pursuing internet crime because it is so exceedingly easy for them to do. They can sit behind a desk, eat doughnuts, and bust a bunch of teenagers on Myspace for posting a picture of a pot plant or a 16 y.o. boobie. Giving them mandatory data retention for two years would make their jobs easier still. If I was convinced they would be going after actual terrorists and real child-abusers then I would perhaps be more understanding, but I don't want the privacy rights of all americans sacrificed so the cops can bust a few more dumb teenagers and closet-perverts.
Copykats (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me quote Thomas Jefferson (younger people can e-mail me and I'll tell you) to show you how perverted you Americans have become lately:
"It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance."
The Democrats wont fix this - why would they? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let me put that into focus for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. "Big Brother" just ensures that everyone is a documented lawbreaker, and that documentation can be used to harrass, blackmail, or remove anyone who offends the ruling power.
The cost to the ISP (Score:5, Insightful)
We're a small ISP, and we keep a week or two of backups and it's already several terabytes. Now, the feds want us to extract all the access, email and web log files from the backups and save them from 2 years. There's a couple thousand ISPs in the US, spread this cost over the US industry, and you are looking at millions, perhaps tens of millions of dollars per year in additional storage and staff costs.
As a final point, I have 3 kids. Anyone invites me to a meeting and opens it with slides of child porn and my one thought is they are sick sick sick. Most of the people "invited" to the meeting are probably parents, you can sell anti-child porn without showing it to us! What does it say about our AG that he supports torture and has a collection of child porn which he shows to people?
What, exactly, do they want logged? (Score:2, Insightful)
So that leaves, what, stream data? What kind of info is available from a stream capture? Originating/destination IP addresses and ports, time/duration of connection, and maybe number of bytes transferred?
I need to get off my ass and get my site's mixmaster reamiler up and running in order to contribute my part. This government shit's getting spookier by the day!
Inflationary risk (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod this puppy WAY up.
Gonzales has already said [bloomberg.com] that the lack of data retention has already hurt child pornography investigations, practically blaming the ISPs for hindering an investigation - and who want's to look like they're aiding the criminal?This half porn/half terrorism is rediculous. Next they'll be saying hate speech, or arson investigations, or whatever - must... retain... records...
Can = will with the government, which is why record retention is so damned scary. Just like with the Wired article about the surveilance (sp?) conference recently - if they CAN spy on you, they WILL, which has been proven time and again in the very, very recent past.
Child porn my ass. Control the populace - call it what it is.
what is it with these people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Smaller Government and Less Regulation (Score:3, Insightful)
Republicans would like nothing better than an armed American milita, easily suppressed by the Marines, to justify martial law and the roundups of liberals^Wsubversives.
The time when armed private Americans could stop government tyranny is long gone. Gun owners traded that protection for cheaper, easier commerce in hobby guns - a deal Republicans were happy to offer.
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:3, Insightful)
. .
KFG
Re:The Democrats wont fix this - why would they? (Score:2, Insightful)
More to the point though, I have to take issue with your saying "Clinton was in office when the NSA Wiretapping began" because it is misleading and completely skirts the real issue of why all of us so-called tinfoil-hat-moonbats are pissed about it. YES, the NSA have been wiretapping forever. They're the freakin' NSA -- of course they have.
The thing is, under Clinton they did so in compliance with the laws passed by congress to provide oversight in the form of the Foreign Intelligence Serveilance Act, which created a secretive court to issue the warrants. Under Bush, they decided to skip the bit about a court issuing a warrant.
For me, the issue is not the surveillance, and it isn't even the warrant. (I do think there should always be a warrant, but if congress specifically passed legislation exempting the NSA, I'd have less of an issue with it). The problem for me is the total break-down of our three-tiered system of government. The executive MUST either get the approval of the court, or get the legislative branch to change the requirements of the law. It can't simply assert that the law only applies when the president says so, as W. seems to think with his signing statements.
The Democrats will do everything they can within the system to look out for their own self-interests, yes. They are politicians, after all. But the Republicans will completely disregard the system to look out for their own best interests. One of those is way worse for us than the other.
Re:Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitut (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
These people are just going to far...!
Oh, you finally noticed, that, eh?
Yes, the US Constitution is really quite shocking in that it would make the government hamstrung and inefficient -- if they spend their time worrying about this "Goddamn Piece of Paper", they'll never catch the Bad Guys in time!
Of course, that was the intent -- make it so freakin' clear as day that the government should not be efficient, should be thwarted in its natural desire to run roughshod over the citizenry.
But what percentage of the US population is even vaguely aware of the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights? How many even understand the difference between the fact that these rights are stated to make them clear to all, not to "grant" them?
The dismal answer, of course, is: not enough to make a damn bit of difference. Despite 35 years of the Libertarian Party trying to wake people up to the issue, the erosion of liberties in the US has continued apace. If things keep going as they are, the us will be a Fascist state (if it isn't already).
People of the United States! Realistically, you have two basic options!
The choice is yours!
Re:Feel Safer? (Score:4, Insightful)
--trb
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well... To be fair. Nazi courts during WWII worked properly, efficiently, and as intended by those in power. Everyone simply just trusted them to work without question.
Although, in a big pile of irony, the Allies put the Judcial system on trial [wikipedia.org] after the war for crimes aginast humanity.
And to really be fair, our judicial system is nowhere near that type of system which is why we need to question its authority every day.
Don't prey on children and don't plan terrorist acts and you'll be fine.
Really now... Is terrorist and child predators that big of threat? Did we run out of communists? The worse thing that could come out of this is that we don't have any terrorists or child predators to throw in jail which leads to these huge security organizations twiddling their thumbs and deciding to make up targets in order to justify more funding.
The probelm with government is that if they don't spend their money or do anything, then they loose their funding. If there are no criminals, predators, or terrorists to go after they will have to create them to continue their employement.
God forbid we ever live in a peaceful and lawabiding world where we don't need this kind of security.
Re:Let me put that into focus for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
This, to me, is the scarriest thing that a government can do. Pass laws and then say, "well it's OK, we're not going to use this against people". What? Don't pass laws if you're not going to prosecute every violator. Otherwise it sounds like you're saying, "this law shouldn't affect people that don't cause any controversy... we're only going to use it to take down people we don't like". Great, just great.
If every law were actually enforced, they would go away when people got fed up with them. Imagine every jaywalker going to jail -- jaywalking wouldn't be illegal for much longer after W (or someone else important, not one of us pleebs) had to spend time in a cell overnight.
Speaking of which, I think it's time to start filing lawsuits against the government for all these bullshit laws that are passed. I'm sure there are plenty of other laws that make these laws illegal.
Re:The cost to the ISP (Score:3, Insightful)
That he's a self-important, selfish, fascist, sick fuck?
But we already knew that.
Funny how they look at the problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how they *don't* also wonder why they can't reliably track down snail mail to its sender, and aren't threatening the USPS and UPS with legislation to do so or else. And this is despite the fact that you can send bombs, funny white powders, and other biohazards through the mail to terrorize the population. That's really not something you can do with e-mail.
Re:McCarthy was a traitor (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, if it's such a good idea, write a well thought out law and apply it. I'm tired of these goddamned power grabs.
I mean, this shiat isn't that hard, but like TripMaster Monkey said, "if we 'persuade' the Internet companies to retain this data for us 'voluntarily', then we can act without restraint or oversight"
There is a reason companies all over America decided not to retain stuff like that for more than [arbitrarily short period of time, except where mandated by law].
I'll give you a hint: It had to do with police subpoenas of records.
Re:Article Text (Score:5, Insightful)
Why. If they're doing nothing wrong, they have nothing to hide.
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't trust the courts to work properly, then your issue is much bigger than this request/legislation.
This piece of legislation is not the problem. If it were really going to be used in the ways they claim it will be used, it would be a decent piece of legislation (although an inconvenience to ISPs). It would help put predators behind bars, and potentially disrupt terrorist attacks. The problem is, as JonTurner suggested, much bigger than this legislation. The problem arises when AT&T gives the NSA any information they ask for without going through proper channels. The problem is that we can't trust our government not to use things like this against people who disagree with them politically. We shouldn't sit here and oppose small pieces of legislation like the one in question, we need to be looking at the bigger issue.
Brings up an interesting question (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Appeals to Emotion. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's UNCONSTITUTIONAL for them to send ANYONE to Guantanamo and hold them as prisoner without trial. Read the Bill of Rights. The word "citizen" is not used ONCE. This is on purpose - the founders wanted ALL HUMANS to have these rights, not just CITIZENS.
Why? Because the British government had similar laws written to protect CITIZENS - so all the British did during the colonial days was revoke someone's citizenship to strip them of that legal protection.
Sound familiar?
The founders didn't want the government to be able to do that to ANYONE - which is why they used the word 'person' instead of 'citizen'. And lo and behold, what has the Bush Administration done? Declared "enemy combatants" to be stripped of their rights.
Unfortunately for him, that doesn't relieve him of the Constitutional protections set up in the Bill of Rights. The federal government is not allowed to hold ANYONE the way they are holding these people. No law passed by Congress (*cough* PATRIOT ACT *cough*) can trump the Bill of Rights; only another Constitutional Amendment can do that, and there aren't any that strip you of your right to a public and speedy trial.
I can't wait for someone to successfully sue the federal government for these violations. Unfortunately, the now-conservative Supreme Court will just say "Oh, well, that's fine. NO biggy, you can fuck over the American people any way you want"
Re:The cost to the ISP (Score:1, Insightful)
It used to be called "extortion" but I believe the fashionable term is "terrorism" (as "Is in this information going to be used for anything other than Saving the Children? Yes, we intend to use it for terrorism."). It is essentially the same as going into the meeting with pictures of a brutal torture/murder and saying "this guy didn't make his payments."
Somebody should press charges: this was an exhibition of child pornography...let the court decide if it was warranted. Meanwhile, someone should sieze the AG's laptop or at least make it public that this creepy f*** is walking around with a taxpayer-sponsored laptop full of kiddie porn.