FBI Head Wants Strong Data Retention Rules

KevHead writes "Speaking at a conference of international police chiefs, FBI Director Robert Mueller called for strict data retention guidelines for US ISPs. Echoing DHS head Michael Cherthoff's assertion that the Internet was enabling terrorists to telecommute to work, Mueller went further and said that the US needs stricter data retention guidelines. '"All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help us identify these offenders and protect future victims," Mueller said. The solution? Forcing ISPs to retain data for set periods of time.' If that happens, how long before the MPAA and RIAA start asking to take a peek at the data too, as they have in Europe?"

Comments

Answer to unwanted data retention is poisoning

[slaida1]

Database poisoning, ie. entering information that is not only bogus but also harmful, making previously useful lookups turn back so much garbage that real info is hard to find. In other words, some kind of proxy program on client side that loads pages from given list of addresses. That list can be composed of all sites possibly under surveillance. It randomly loads pages in the background, makes google searches with offending words, but doesn't bother user with the data it loads.

One of my most favorite quotes

[rolfwind]

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him"

-Cardinal Richelieu (French Minister and Cardinal. 1585-1642)

The Fifth Wave*

[Nefarious Wheel]

Nobody starts the morning with the goal of "Today I will convert our system of government into a totalitarian autocracy" -- no good person, or group of people would willingly do that.

However, by one tiny chip of compromise after another, one infinitesimal shift to accommodate a "reasonable response" after another, a group of people can turn into "The (choose ethnic group) Problem" and suddenly it's okay to treat people as things, the only capital crime there is. You never quite know where you cross the line and suddenly you have become the enemy your grandparents fought war, bloody war to prevent from turning the future into a long night of horror.

Will you have the courage to say "NO" to the new Gestapo? They're just nice guys like you who have a job to do, y'know? Or will you draw a line somewhere and say "At long last, Mr. McCarthy, have you no shame?"

(*Title refers to the short story in The Last Whole Earth Catalog. Find it and read it. Was a school experiment designed to show how good people could turn into black, black Nazis and why there were no Nazi's in Germany after the war. Scares the tar out of me, more so as the days go by.)

Re:It will never be "enough".

[aaza]

I would like to see this for all "we are observing you for your own good" type legislation:

The first step is to try it out on politicians (they are public figures, after all), with the information being freely available to anyone who wants it. No FOI requests, just a wget (or similar) from a webserver. Severe penalties if that information is not available. Naturally, servers do go down, and that's fine, but that information should be available within 24 hours of it being recorded.

If they are willing to do that, then maybe they could be allowed to do it to the public. I think there would be a severe reduction in stupid laws if politicians (but not other members of the public) were subjected to them during a trial period, with the general public being able to see the results.