Congress May Consider Mandatory ISP Snooping

An anonymous reader writes to mention a News.com story covering a most disquieting trend in the House of Representatives. From the article: "Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette's proposal says that any Internet service that 'enables users to access content' must permanently retain records that would permit police to identify each user. The records could not be discarded until at least one year after the user's account was closed. It's not clear whether that requirement would be limited only to e-mail providers and Internet providers such as DSL (digital subscriber line) or cable modem services. An expansive reading of DeGette's measure would require every Web site to retain those records."

Comments

Retired Sandra O'Connor warned us....

[QuietLagoon]

The we may be seeing the beginnings of a dictatorship here in the United States. We should heed her warnings.

BiPartisan BigBrotherism

[howardcohen]

Just for the record, the "representative" pushing this is a Democrat.

WTF? 86 - 100% approval rating from the ACLU?

[billybob2]

Apparently Diana DeGette received 86 - 100% approval ratings from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the past 6 years, according to Vote-Smart.org

How can this apparently high approval rating from a purported supporter of civil liberties be reconciled with Rep. Degette's recent anti-privacy action? Was the ACLU on crack when they scored her?

Re:WTF? 86 - 100% approval rating from the ACLU?

[zCyl]

How can this apparently high approval rating from a purported supporter of civil liberties be reconciled with Rep. Degette's recent anti-privacy action? Was the ACLU on crack when they scored her?

It appears from her own words that a representative from the DOJ told her a carefully constructed sob story about child pornography, complete with anecdote about how this precise law would have saved a child, and including the availability fallacy. She says she considered this "eye-opening", and so apparently she believes she drafted this law "for the children".

In other words, this bill was lobbied for by the DOJ by means of emotional appeal. It probably hasn't occured to Diana DeGette yet to consider how internet anonymity can be a potent tool for the longterm preservation of freedom in a democracy. Perhaps a few sob stories about China would be "eye-opening" to her. *nudges people from Colorado to action*

Re:People in the West ARE Frugal

[arminw]

(.....Research here shows we don't drive any less if prices rise,.....)

However, the total number of miles someone over there drives is much less each year. There are some people in the American West whose commute is farther than the longest point to point distance possible in a tiny country. The state of Oregon where I live, for example, has a larger area than Germany, but less than 4 million people scattered over this large area. About three million of these live in an area STILL much larger than the Netherlands.

Most of the money Europeans pay for fuel is the taxes. In the US, taxes for fuel are legislated to be used only for transportation related costs, mostly to build and maintain roads. In Europe the gas tax is part of general revenue, used for all government and social expenses.