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DOJ Seeks Mandatory Data Retention For ISPs
Hugh Pickens writes "Computerworld reports that in testimony before Congress the US Department of Justice renewed its call for legislation mandating Internet Service Providers (ISP) retain customer usage data for up to two years because law enforcement authorities are coming up empty-handed in their efforts to go after online predators and other criminals because of the unavailability of data relating to their online activities. 'There is no doubt among public safety officials that the gaps between providers' retention policies and law enforcement agencies' needs, can be extremely harmful to the agencies' investigations,' says Jason Weinstein, deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, adding that data retention is crucial to fighting Internet crimes (PDF), especially online child pornography. Weinstein admits that a data retention policy raises valid privacy concerns however, saying such concerns need to be addressed and balanced against the need for law enforcement to have access to the data. 'Denying law enforcement that evidence prevents law enforcement from identifying those who victimize others online,' concludes Weinstein." Think about how much evidence is denied to law enforcement by envelopes, opaque concrete, and criminals' failure to shout.
So, now ISPs all have to buy terabytes of hard disk space to store all of those log files just in case some nosy prosecutor comes a callin'? ISPs might be better off threatening to just shut down operations and leave their customers disconnected to get the point across to the lawyers in congress that they need to consult with the people they're trying to regulate before throwing impractical solutions at them.
If records of my activities are recorded and available for investigation, and I have equal rights, those of all people should be too. Given that home users are directly linked to an ISP and all their activities can be directly monitored with a very high likelyhood of locating and monitoring the proper suspect in an investigation, they are at a distinct disadvantage when compared to others who can mix their activities with many other users in a large office or government division by hiding behind a corporate firewall, who can then respond to investigators with strong legal and technical protections as well. So all government offices and corporations should have their records kept by third parties as well, installed on equipment directly linked to their switches within their environments, and revealed to the public under FOIA and/or judicial order. In fact, for certain positions requiring high public confidence, such as public representatives, publicly traded companies, or groups managing public resources, connection of their own computers and that of their staff should be monitored and records kept for possible future breach of public trust investigations.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I have a problem with it. The want to demand that my ISP increases their costs (which naturally will be passed on to me) to store data to be used against me, despite that I have done nothing illegal. And it will do nothing to catch criminals, because they can just pass all their data through an encrypted tunnel to a VPN provider in another country. Waste of my money.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
especially online child pornography
There are 3 targets for every government intrusion on civil liberties:
1. Terrorists
2. Child porn
3. Drugs
The law enforcement agencies have determined that those are the issues that can be used to push absolutely anything through. For instance, trying to catch terrorists allows them to grope everybody with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing. Drugs allow them to break down your door at 2 AM, guns drawn, without identifying themselves as the government, and in some cases killing people. And of course child porn and terrorism allows them to watch absolutely everything you do online. That these are plainly illegal doesn't matter, because anybody who disagrees with them must be a terrorist, child pornographer, or junkie.
That doesn't mean those threats don't exist, but if they were serious about addressing the real risks around us they'd be focused on more mundane issues like traffic violations.
I am officially gone from
Requiring warrants doesn't make conditions equal. Once data exists, it leaks, via legal, semi-legal, and extra-legal routes. There's no denying it happens. So if data exists on the public, data should exist on the officials. More so perhaps, as their positions require us to trust them for our basic rights to exist, but they don't need to trust us for their rights to exist. Records on citizens are usually used to prosecute criminals and/or abuse citizens rights. Records on public officials can be manipulated and forged to fake legitimacy. It'll be rare to have it leaked or released for evidence of abusive behavior. So the balance of power the records will supply has to be equalized somehow.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
You do realize that publicly traded companies aren't "public" like the government, right?
Despite the misnomer, publicly traded companies are still private entities owned by individuals (or groups of individuals). What the heck gives you the right to see ANYTHING they are doing, aside from normal regulatory compliance?
Most things that the government requires add costs: various forms of record keeping, emission controls on automobiles, workplace safety devices, etc.
Substitute accountant for ISP and you could make the same argument, including most of the "clever criminals can outsmart law enforcement" argument.
How is this really different?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Originally, just sexual abuse of children was illegal. Then it became child pornography, on the grounds that demand for it created an incentive to abuse children. After that though, it just got sillier and sillier. It's a ratchett effect - any politician can gain by tightening or extending the law in this area, but to so much as suggest weakening it would open one up to accusations of not careing about protecting children. So the laws can only ever get broader, never narrower.
So, we should monitor everybody so that if in the future we need to monitor a specific person, we'll already have the data. Brilliant!
Welcome to the surveillance society. Wouldn't this run afoul of the whole "unreasonable search and seizure"? Hell, keep everybody's web history long enough and you'll likely find something you could use against them.
I completely disagree that ISPs should just track everything in case law-enforcement wants it at some point. It's a little Orwellian, and I fear that it is only going to get worse -- in their zeal, governments are really going overboard. This is just depressing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I was a stand in security and abuse coordinator for a little less than a year at Time Warner Cable. All it took was a subpoena faxed to the office for us to hand over any data request. A lot of times cops would get pissed because a police letterhead fax wasn't enough, but it takes no time to get a subpoena. Police would try to say they were afraid the data could get purged if they didn't get it now, versus a few hours from now which is BS. I would tell them I already pulled the requested data and had it right in front of me so no worries about it being purged, they were not amused.
If any expansion of power is needed it should be the ability to have a request to hold data while a subpoena is processed. That is a simple answer, but the government isn't interested in simple answers its intent is to chip away at privacy so it can do whatever it wants whenever it wants.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
It's not going to be just the police. If the data is there it will be available to civil suits. Things like showing your ex-spouse visits porn sites and is clearly not a suitable parent.
My sense is that the "need" for ISPs to do their work for them indicates that law enforcement could better utilize their limited resources.
Maybe spend fewer resources on enforcing, say, drug laws, marijuana specifically, and more time and resources on other crimes that actually hurt people?
And I don't necessarily mean physical crimes (assault, murder) -- how about simple burglary or breaking and entering?
A neighbor's house got broken into; the daughter's laptop was stolen and the window to her room was damaged beyond repair. She needed a laptop for school and, obviously, the window needed replacement. So they're out $3k they don't necessarily have and/or she falls behind in school or they can't close the window to her room, none of which are very palatable choices, especially in a Minnesota winter.
Yet, when they called the cops they got two nice guys who gave them a case number and took the laptop S/N "on the very slim chance it turns up."
So, basically there's no resources to do extra patrols or extra investigators but plenty of guys to take down pot dealers. Yay.