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DOJ Wants ISPs to Retain All Customer Records
doubledoh writes "CNET reports that the Department of Justice is 'quietly shopping around' the idea of requiring ISP's to retain all data of their customer's online activities for at least several months. The SEC already mandates that publicly traded firms retain all company emails for at least 2 years, but it looks like John Q. Public may also soon be subject to similar Constitutional violations. Big Brother, here we come."
They don't need to log everything in the beginning. The goal is not to take all our freedoms and privacies all at once. They just want to get the ball rolling. They will ask the ISPs to log a totally unreasonable amount of data knowing they will settle for a lesser but still privacy killing amount. Then every few years as storage technology improves, more and more will be logged.
This beautifully refined process of slowly chipping away at our rights always begins like this. Figure out a way to kill this right now or you never will.
Brokerage firms are regulated by the SEC. The SEC has long mandated that brokerage firms retain ALL communications with and about customers (including phone calls and paper mail) in order to allow the SEC to investigate violations of SEC rules. These searchs are carried out with the knowledge of the investigated firms. The only time this would affect a customer's privacy would be if there was a suspicion of an SEC rule violation, such as the Martha Stewart case.
Allowing for searching of ISP logs is much more a violation of customers' privacy. There is no notification to the customer, the Justice department keeps asking for the ability to review these records without issuing a subpeona and without any oversight.
Presenting the ISP logs as an extension of the SEC rules is both incorrect and dangerous. The SEC rules are primarily for the protection of customers and are well founded Constitutionally. The ISP snooping is not.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
I think, therefore I doh.
Tracking -everything- all users do online might be problematic - but certainly a list of all the web sites a given user hits in a month wouldn't be too tough.
Presumably they'd need a warrant -require- an ISP turn over the logs - but there'd be nothing preventing some of the more "patriotic" ones from "cooperating in a more pro-active fashion". Ie - just turning over a nice synopsis of everything on a monthly basis.
Don't think it's possible? There's a case in Seattle where the FBI tried to get a library to hand over a list of everyone who checked out Osama Bin Laden's biography.
I've personally provided web server logs to police without a warrent because a bomb-threat was involved. I'm 100% sure that case was legit - but I probably would've helped if I was only 60% sure. In reality - they were my employers servers - so I didn't really have a choice.
"We think 1 of the 10,000 customers you service might be up to something really bad. We'd really like your logs. All of them."
Are you gonna say no? Is your boss going to let you say no? Requiring ISPs to have the data on hand is not far from requiring the data be readily available to the government upon a "request for cooperation"
That's why you should never allow the government to limit your freedom "a bit" because inevitably that "bit" will become full blown anal rape.
This guy knew what he was talking about...so did the rest of the guys that drafted the Constitution. It's too bad most of their wisdom is ignored today.I think, therefore I doh.
How is this a surprise? Go look on google groups and see some other quiet actions being taken. Many people who ordered from chemical suppliers, even frickin plastic tubes and such from many years ago are getting threatening letters. These are legitimate citizens who are into chemistry (many licensed) getting pushed around by the DOJ. The government has MANY regulations that cost businesses a fortune to comply with. If you want to get paranoid, you could say that "the system" does these things because that way the poor man will NEVER be able to get rich, because only the rich will be able to afford to comply. So, if they can comply, and their competition is reduced in the process (i.e. smaller businesses), that is all the more bank in their pockets. Personally, this is rediculous. If someone wants to commit crimes, they will find a way. This just reduces our liberties and privacy. Isn't this really what the terrorists wanted all along? A paranoid country spending tons of money on the mere thought of an attack? wide spread panics? companies going out of business due to new regulations? This is what the terrorists wanted. All it took was 19 guys to turn us into our own worst enemy.
Those are checkpoints, and generally don't need to register information. Yes, you can be recorded by a camera or strip searched, but that is quite different from having your driving habits profiled and your possessions recorded in a log.
Two months of Internet data? I consider that roughly as invasive as having an agent follow me around for two months. Seriously, these days I read my news online. I use e-mail for communication. I look up anything I want to on google instead of the library. I check out products I want to buy. Two months of IRC logs I don't even want to talk about. As long as I am doing nothing wrong, that is NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS. Sigh. Building a massive profile database is simply wrong.
Free state:
1. Suspicion/reason for inquery
2. Get court order
3. Gather evidence
4. Prosecute
Police state:
1. Gather massive profile
2. Get court order*
3. Review profile for evidence
4. Prosecute
*optional
Do you remember the time, when the difference between us and the East block was that in the East block, the government kept a massive profile on everyone? When the difference was that you could travel around, without the government recording all your movements? he founding fathers never imagined a situation like today. Then, people had to watch people. Now, machines watch people. I am sure that if they had, they would have made an amendment limiting the right of government to do so ex facto, before the fact.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In the meantime, it would be nice if people knew that the whole reason we have terrorism and fear in the first place, is because our big government has been bombing, invading, and generally pissing other countries off all around the world for decades. If we had maintained our small isolationist government, we wouldn't have enemy terrorists to be afraid of (or use as an excuse to erode privacy and liberty).
But what are the politicians' answers to the problems of big government? Bigger government!
Sigh.
I think, therefore I doh.
One day, after my application for a Parental License is approved by the DOJ, I hope my kid doesn't ask me, "Daddy, what was freedom like like when you were a boy?"
Or the even worse question, "Why didn't anyone try to stop them from taking away your freedom?"
I guess I'll just have to reply, "The Ministry of Peace needed to combat terrorists."
I think, therefore I doh.
So are the DOJ offering to pay for all this?
.. call it an information tax for anyone who wants to get into the ISP business.
No, You and I are going to pay for all of this.
Along with paying for the occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq plus all the other places the US currently occupies, and most likely will soon attack, invade and occupy, specifically Iran and North Korea, all in the name of democracy and because "They hate our freedom"(tm)
Its like a hidden tax
Yes, it's called "Taxation without representation"
Welcome to the New World Order
Find and compromise as many of these files as you can. Identify as many politicians' accounts as you can. Post all of the log files on the internet.
If even half of the log files found are as embarrassing as I'm imagining then all of Washington would go into a buzz about protecting privacy.
...when next the US Post Office will be required to scan and image and index into a searchable database every letter and document that flows thru the postal system.
"This beautifully refined process of slowly chipping away at our rights always begins like this. Figure out a way to kill this right now or you never will."
Never? Abusive dictatorships get violently overthrown at some point or another, how long it takes to be corrupted into another abusive dictatorship is a measure of the wisdom of the new system.
We are just following the age old cycle: Rebel, rinse, repeat.
Thinking about it, I realize that most people, to say the least, aren't trying to hide anything, and won't encrypt.
The danger comes from not just the government, which is bad enough, considering the direction they are going -- no subpoenas, rooting through your life on fishing expeditions -- but from hostile parties using their proven insider connections to the ISPs and the government to conduct their own surveillance and destruction campaigns against targeted individuals.
Cults such as the Moonies and the Scientologists have shown that there is no limit to the means they will employ to destroy even the slightest criticism. They won't even have to leave the bunker with such data available. They can phone in disaster on their "enemies".
Journalists will have to live spotless lives to avoid being ruined by even the most casual search into their life's database, thus insuring the silence of the fourth estate -- even quieter than they are now.
Of course, the people who will utilize this data, government officials and the shadowy almost-governments such as cults, as well as the very wealthy and/or celebrated, will be immune to such searches, being largely anonymous in their activities. They'll make sure of that.
I don't think so since your ISP would have all that data anyway. But who knows? I figure at some point they will realise that you can get bomb making information (aka chemistry books) from a library and decide all libraries will have to have cameras that record every book everyone picks up.
All this 1984 shit pisses me off. I'd rather take my chances with the terrorists than give up all privacy and freedom. The administration can go fuck itself.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken