Slashdot Mirror
34 ISPs Subpoenaed By U.S. Government
seanonymous writes "The Justice Department, in their continued effort to revive questionable legislation, has subpoenaed dozens of ISPs for files. Considering that ISPs generally host their users' mail, this seems like it could be a larger issue than their fight with Google over search queries. Some, like Verizon, even resisted the call for information." From the article: "Representatives for McAfee and Symantec confirmed that the companies had received and complied with the subpoenas. A spokeswoman at LookSmart did not immediately return a phone call. Many of the subpoenas asked for information related to products that can be used to filter out adult content for underage Internet users. Symantec's subpoena, dated June 29, asked for a wide range of information about the price and popularity of the Internet filtering products it sells and how the products are used by customers. " Information Week has a number of the documents involved, including the letter of objection from Verizon.
My, that was a yummy potato!
Can somebody please explain why it is that the DoJ is being allowed to write all these subpoenas anyway? I didn't think they had any legal right to do so.
Is this just a simple matter of the DoJ assuming that at least some of the corporations will decide it's faster to comply, than to argue for their privacy?
Hmm.. I do think that this is getting a bit out of hand now. I'm glad that some of "them" do resist the calls for information, but for how long ? After all, most resources are controlled by the government and they're capable of putting an enormous amount of pressure on said corporations.
I don't quite understand the US governments crusade against online porn and for child protection. Is it just a ploy to gain votes ? It's however scary to see such a breach of privacy, even if on a small scale. IMO, this could grow into things much bigger.
I work with online advertising (read that I have a couple of websites..), and I want to share something with my fellow slashdotters. Many of you must have heard of/seen Google Adsense. Well, MS's response to that, MSN Adcenter launched in Beta a few months ago and I've been working with that. One look inside that interface and it is shocking to see the kind of targetting they're capable of. If they can target so well, they obviously have an ENORMOUS amount of information on folks on the internet. Just an example of their penetration, you can choose to target to "Unmarried Men in the age group of 30-35 in the state of New York with incomes in the rage of $100,000". (We all know what those ads are ;)) I saw this and was like "WHAT ?! How the hell are they supposed to have so much information on a person who's just opened a website to see some stuff.."
Well, my point is that all this information that lies with MSN, Google, etc. CAN be accessed by the government, and as an individual worried about my privacy, this is alarming.
I think it's time we all scroogled. (and no, this is not a promotional post :))
Why is the government so concerned about controlling children's access to porn latley? Have the children found a way to extract oil from internet porn?
You know, I look at that and wonder.. reminds me of MS, they can't solve a problem themselves so beat it out of someone else who might have the solution. Except this is the government, I'm afraid to see how far they'll go to do what they want... I'm not just being paranoid am I?
What they're doing is trying to set up a case to argue that Congress needs to legislate more censorship and regulations to protect Americans from our own freedoms. What they should do is get their goddamn hand out of the pot and let the market decide what it needs. Do people want web filtering to protect their children? Let them pay for filters, or even better, take a hands-on approach with their children online. Either way, this is between consumers and producers. I don't see how the government belongs in this picture.
One of the most irritating things I find about television is the censorship. Even on shows that are above average as far as the brainpower of their target audience (e.g. Mythbusters), I find that I have to listen to goddamn beeps and blips all the time. I say let them swear, and don't censor it. If people don't like it, they won't watch, and will hopefully tell the producers why. Even better, implement some sort of on-demand filtering so my cable box censors it if I choose. Conservative Christian? Turn it on. Everyone else? Turn it off, enjoy the language. The same it true of the Internet. I don't want the FCC or Congress telling me what I can and cannot see or do online. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. If I choose not to expose myself or my children to certain content, I will either not go to those sites, or I will allow the free market to provide content filtering software to me.
By the way, I don't usually watch much TV. Partly because of the mind-numbing dullness and idiocy, partly because I cannot stand censorship. I want my swear words!
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
I am all for stamping out child porn, it is sick and damaging.
Careful -- you've already fallen for their manipulation of the language. They're hoping that by using the words "children" and "pornography" in close conjunction, you'll automatically think, "Oh, child porn, we've got to get rid of that!" But COPA has nothing to do with child porn; it has to do (allegedly) with children seeing porn on the web -- the vast bulk of which is not child porn; it's regular old-fashioned adult porn. Conflating the (very mild, and entirely within the parents' domain) issue of little Johnny looking at dirty pictures with the (very serious, and entirely criminal already) problem of child porn is a cynical and dangerous political ploy.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
No offence, but if all the people who posted comments like this were helping with / donating to projects like Freenet 0.7 and i2p we would probably have fairly robust and usable strong anonymity / censorship resistance networks by now.
Fight against this authoritarian bullshit sure, but we badly need to prepare for the preservation of freedom in a 'soft' police state, because that's where we're heading right now.