Silence the Alarms, I say.
While I am generally quite wary of anything which may invade my privacy, in this case, I am not terribly concerned. Everyone seems to be working themselves into a righteous frenzy over what amounts essentially to a trifle. With no warrant, this bill only allows the acquisition of specific pieces of general information such as name and address, for which there is no reasonable expectation of confidentiality - indeed, little more than could be expected from a telephone directory. A telephone directory is not a wiretap. Likewise, this bill would not allow the acquisition of content without a court order. That said, I am not completely indifferent as to the passing of this bill - I believe that, as always when privacy is concerned, we should proceed cautiously, but not immediately and indignantly strike this bill down as an affront to our privacy.
If you are worried, try:
- IPsec
- Tor
- SSH
- SSL
- GnuPG
etc, etc.
P.S. Mr. Van Loan: A rotary telephone sits atop my desk. I use it regularly.