Bill proposes ISPs, Wi-Fi keep logs for police

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/20/internet.records.bill/index.html

 

I think that all of our personal mail should be scanned and stored as well. And I think that everyone should be required to wear a recording device 24/7 and turn it in for storage each week. I mean after all, people have conversations about committing crimes in private. And of course if a person is not doing something illegal, then they shouldn't mind, right? Our police need all of our personal day to day conversations, who we talk to and about what, just in case. And they are above reproach so it is unacceptable to question them. They know what is best for us.

 

Haha good one caspian , did you read the article about how they want to redesighn the internet and make a system to where in order to use it you would have to have a kinda license like you use a car, good thing I use xerobank.

 

I hope Steve reads this and comments. If enacted, this would basically put XeroBank out of business. There is a part of Senator Cornyn's bill that would make it a federal crime for any Internet company found to be "facilitating the transmission of child pornography." With required data retention on individual users, it would be hard for any privacy service like XeroBank to take a chance on one of their users abusing the service and using it to "facilitate the transmission of child pornography." Yes, of course this is all being done in an effort to fight child porn. Well, at least that's the convenient excuse and one that makes things like this hard for legislators to vote against. I, like many others, think it has zilch to do with child pornography, it's just the bugaboo that gets attention to rally support for the bill. In the end, it's about Big Brother and free and open communications regarding all kinds of subjects.

I just looked this up on THOMAS and the bill can be read here http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1076:

edit: I think the troublesome part fro any privacy provider is this phrase "or has reason to believe facilitates access to". If something is being done secretly, privately, than a prosecutor could easily argue that an owner of a privacy service plausibly "has reason to believe" since, by definition, the service is helping one hide their customers activities. The big question is do the operators, employees, themselves need to be offshore? Just because the servers and company is structured outside the U.S., does the wording of this bill mean they could arrest Steve because of the language above? It's a horrible, horrible bill. Business will try to defeat this bill because of the huge responsibility put on them and privacy advocates will come out in force. Let's hope this bill never even comes to a vote in the House and Senate. Terrible stuff and all cynically in the name of children.

 

Well you know, it all just makes sense now. I mean, don't you want to know if there are peace activists, atheists, and queers in your neighborhood? And all of this whistleblower sh*t's gotta stop. The News media needs to start towin' the line. I think that's long overdue. And don't be surprised if they find some witches and pagans in your neighborhood too. Yeah. Who cares about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, a right to privacy anyway, and the Constitution as a whole? I mean it's just a G*d*mnd piece of paper, for Chrisake!

 

You're right. This has nothing whatsoever to do with child pornography. but Xerobank would not be any more liable than any other ISP anyway. They could all be potentially used for that. But keep iin mind too that Xerobank is not a US company.

 

Caspian, read my edit in my post above. So much would need to be clarified, and read the bill I linked to. It's just a huge explosion packed inside a small package.

 

Yes I agree with you 100% , I just fear the day they try to make it illegal to use encryption on the internet then we will really be in trouble!

 

I think we're past the point of no return on that. Too many use encryption for perfectly valid purposes, internet transactions and so forth. Every newspaper and magazine are constantly running feature stories telling people to encrypt to protect their data. That would be a no-go from the start. But, of course, as the rest of this discussion shows, you can't really rule anything out anymore.

 

Honestly I am trying to see the bigger picture where do you think the internet will be in 10 years, I mean imagine a world of trusted computing, drm, and having to use a system like a drivers license to get online.

 

You're so right. You mentioned the drivers license like system to access the Internet. Did you read the column in the New York Times I posted the other day regarding that?

 

No but I would love to read it could you send me a link to it?

 

But wouldn't all the politicians and their puppet-masters end up in jail
if we did that ?

This law is one area where Europe is way ahead of the US .
In my own country ISP's are required to log and keep for 1 year information
on ALL connections to/from my IP, time/receiver/protocol-type etc .
The secret police are allowed to access this data virtually without any oversight or even remotely probable cause.
That's in Denmark, the country that likes to pretend it's in the front-line
of the battle for freedom of expression, democracy, rule of law and all that propaganda-babble..

 

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=233522

 

Thanks people need to see whats happening its like there taking away our privacy little by little hoping we won't notice, people say I am a little paranoid about privacy and what not but really it's not that bad RIGHT NOW but in time its going to change. People just don't notice the big issue if things keep going where there going there is going to be no privacy on the internet at all. Hopefully if it comes to that someone like xerobank will be able to help out but if not I guess it will come to be just unplugging my computer from the internet. Personally I think it is ashamed you have to use a anonymous proxy to have privacy on the internet nothing against it or anything but I wish the internet was built from the ground up for privacy but then again I don't think the government would be to happy and marketing wouldn't be either since they make all there money off of user habits on the internet.

 

To me, the most important part of that NY Times piece was this, at the very end -

"A more secure network is one that would almost certainly offer less anonymity and privacy. That is likely to be the great trade-off for the designers of the next Internet. One idea, for example, would be to require the equivalent of drivers’ licenses to permit someone to connect to a public computer network. But that runs against the deeply held libertarian ethos of the Internet."

"Proving identity is likely to remain remarkably difficult in a world where it is trivial to take over someone’s computer from half a world away and operate it as your own. As long as that remains true, building a completely trustable system will remain virtually impossible."

It sounds like the writer doesn't necessarily want a "new Internet" to be less anonymous, but sees it as the only way to bring about trust and law & order on the Internet. I think he's got it all backwards. To give up our privacy in this instance is very much giving up a part of our very freedoms. When that becomes the trade off, count me out. I can't support that in any way.

 

Well I don't no what to say I mean redoing the whole internet is going to be a huge task and I just hope this don't come true!

 

It will, don't you worry. Our current internet wasn't even designed to do the things we take for granted everyday, and it in all honesty is not extraordinarily difficult to get it to come crashing down. This is a scary bill, but the one thing that will stop it in its tracks is the question from ISPs: "Who's going to help us pay to do this?". At least for the time being (never impossible), it will be awfully difficult for the government to answer back "You will pay for it, and you WILL abide by it". The one good thing about loopholes in laws is that they work both ways.

Is it possible this law passes? Of course it is. But a lot of questions need answered first, especially the money and Wi-fi issues.

 

Simple solution: They want to stick there nose in your activities, then pull the plug and let them meet static!

IMO they already crossed over the line and they have no reservations on bullying into innocent users activities.

So, buy your programs like art, math, sciences, program makers, etc. and work OFFLINE!

 

Yes, thanks. It is unconscionable.

 

The purpose of this bill is to keep better records so that the police can arrest more Child Pornographers & the people that sell this kind of trash on the internet whats wrong with that?

 

Well, it seems that there are still people that buy into the official propaganda...

On the other hand, I read the proposed bill, and I found nowhere any reference to WiFi access point. Am I missing something ?

 

My own take on that is that is they have already long had a bead on those type criminals and rightly so, but someone please tell me then why they allow Yahoo, Google, and other internet spammers run scott free and rampant soliciting for money that unfortunately the unwary fall into so often.

I believe they should close down all those criminals, spammers for money AND false advertisers all together in a single heap.

 

Folks,

Let's keep the discussion centered on the potential privacy related issues connected to this item and steer away from the various comments of a more general political nature (which, if continued, will result in closure of this thread). Thanks in advance.

Blue