Bush Wants Right to ISP Customer Data

bryan8m writes "Wired is reporting that the Bush administration wants back the ability to make ISPs turn over information on their customers. The U.S. Court of Appeals is handling the case and of course the feds want to hide details of it from the public. The law giving the government the power to seize communications records from 1986 was strengthened in 2001 by the Patriot Act and struck down after the ACLU challenged it."

Comments

Hiding the law from the people who it is directed

[haluness]

and of course the feds want to hide details of it from the public

I have read of this before, but it is very strange that in a democracy (?) laws for the popluation can be discussed/made by not letting the population know about them.

Does'nt this seem *too* close to a dictatorship - not that the US is one, but it increasingly is seeming that certain aspects are going in that direction

Re:Fuck the ACLU

[interstellar_donkey]

Unlike past wars, this is one that isn't really going to end. The global war on terrorism's ultimate goal is to stop terrorist threats from attacking the United States.

No matter what we do, the threat will always be there, and as such, the war will continue to go on. Granted, a government should be granted special permissions during wartime, with the understanding that when the conflict is over the population can rest easy that things will return to normal.

Only now, any permissions granted to the government won't be temporary. We are setting ourselves up for a government that can violate the principals on which this nation was founded indefinitely.

I for one don't want to live in a country where the government can violate my privacy. I don't want to live in a country where at whim any action can redefined as "terrorist", and I could be labeled a criminal for doing nothing wrong. We've gone past the point where "only guilty people have to worry", and are approaching "innocent people have to worry too."

So kudos to the ACLU. Kudos to any person or group who wants to limit the powers of government. The war just isn't in Iraq, the war is here too. Like the war against terrorism, our domestic war is between those who value liberty and freedom above all else, and those who want to limit it.

The current administration may have the best of intentions, but I can see Bush saying "It is better that the rights of 1,000 innocent Americans should perish at the hands of their own government so that the rights of one American won't be taken by a terrorist."