U.S. Pressures ISPs on Data Retention

packetmon writes "According to Wired's Declan McCullagh 'In a private meeting with industry representatives, Gonzales, Mueller and other senior members of the Justice Department said Internet service providers should retain subscriber information and network data for two years ... A more extensive mandate would require companies to keep track of e-mail messages sent, Web pages visited and perhaps even instant-messaging correspondents.'"

Comments

Do they realize the scope?

[mentatultima]

Considering that more email is generated every year then snail mail; nevermind that just logs alone can overflow hard drives (happened to quite a few systems I encountered). Not even counting the privacy considerations this will create traffic jams and increased costs for internet usage (The extra hard drive space has to come from somewhere).

Not to mention that all that extra has to be pored through. The FBI had gotten information on a case from homeland security, unfortunately they did not parse it down and the FBI agents lamented that they spent a majority of time chasing down pizza deliverys instead of spending more time on the actual case.

Image the uproar when (not if) a cracker gets into the database and abuses all that information.

The information gathered from users can also be used(abused) for blackmailing.

You might be asked to testify against someone, if not then well your employer and spouse might accidently find out about your surfing habits.

All in all, this sounds like a lose-lose situation for almost all involved.