House Panel Approves Bill Forcing ISPs To Log Users

skids writes "Under the guise of fighting child pornography, the House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require internet service providers to collect and retain records about Internet users' activity. The 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall's elections. A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses. Per dissenting Rep. John Conyers (D-MI): 'The bill is mislabeled... This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.'"

Comments

No kidding

[grimmjeeper]

'The bill is mislabeled... This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.'

Conyers hit the nail on the head.

Re:No kidding

[Batmunk2000]

Every year I have to fill out countless government forms detailing every facet of my personal finances and business finances so the State & Federal government can collect taxes "fairly" from businesses and employees alike.
Now suddenly Mr. Conyers isoutraged over ISP tracking? People need to be consistent with their privacy thoughts. The ISP tracking is absolutely ridiculous, but it is nothing compared to what the Feds already collect from people. This battle was long lost.

Re:No kidding

[Culture20]

No thanks to the copyright brigade. If this isn't a good reason to totally abolish copyright I don't know what is. We're getting totalitarianism as a result of commercial capitalism trying to protect its interests using the state. This is why free market fundamentalists are such fuckups, this is the natural result of free market principles taken to their natural conclusion in a human society.

To play Devil's advocate, how exactly is "state intervention" equatable to "free market principles" as defined by the "free market fundamentalists"? Isn't the use of law to define commerce (patents/trademark/copyright) the antithesis of the absolute-free-market folk's point of view?

Re:No kidding

[h4rr4r]

This is not all or nothing. Having to fill out forms to calculate taxes seems fine. That data should also not be used for anything else. Keeping track of citizens speech is not any where near the same thing.

Re:No kidding

[0racle]

Detailed? Really? Like what the name of the person who checked you out at Lowes was? You submit that you bought 16 feet of duct tape right before you went and bought those sleeping pills? Which, coincidentally, was a week before that girl was found tied up and drugged in your area.

The level of detail your ISP would be logging would far outweigh any amount the IRS keeps about you.

Re:No kidding

[kj_kabaje]

I agree--in a true free market, all parties are supposed to be equally well-informed and in equitable positions of power so that they aren't forced to make decision, right?  In such cases, employees would be able to freely move from country to country just as well as employers/corporations.  I'm pretty sure that doesn't exist anywhere, but I could be wrong.  In the US case, the "free-market" people really just mean, rules that allow me to legally screw other people--e.g., a kleptocratic corporate plutocracy.

Re:No kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

"To play Devil's advocate, how exactly is "state intervention" equatable to "free market principles"..."

Because no human being ever acts according to their principles when power and money is at stake in human history. This is why free marketeers are such idiots. You don't think copyright the copyright brigade doesn't believe in the 'free market'? Oh it does... it's "do as we say, not as we do".

You're not being smart, you're just being an ass.

Look out anyone who is married!

[Anonymous Coward]

And just wait till the subpoena’s start flying from divorce lawyers

Partisanship? Please...

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

This bill will sail through with bipartisan support. Point me to the privacy-invading bill that was unilaterally forced through. The worst and biggest ones were bipartisan, namely the DMCA, which no one would even sign their name to, and the PATRIOT Act, which very few voted against.

I foresee the raise of VPN services.

[Eglembor]

this is akin to place a gps on every single person in the States and keep track of where they are going, when, how, etc. I am amazed how civil liberties are constantly being eroded by the "anti big government" party.

Democrats are idiots but the Republican Party...

[Assmasher]

...seems to consist of people who truly believe that whatever you can get away with is kosher. F*** I can't stand them. I can't fathom how a middle class or lower person could even dream of voting for them - all that bullsh** about family values - they couldn't care less, they'll say whatever you want to hear. There are some dems like that as well, Nancy Pelosi (for example) - that b**** is the devil.

Step one to a better USA - abolish the party system entirely. Your only affiliation should be to individual constituents.

Damn Tea Party!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Where the hell is the tea party? They talk about keeping the government out of our lives, but when it really matters they aren't anywhere to be found.

They can hold the entire country hostage with this ridiculous debt limit kabuki (it's ridiculous because congress already authorised the spending when they passed the bills spending the money earlier this year), they are trying to have their cake and eat it too) but they can't stop one minor bill that directly contradicts their stated ideology? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Re:Damn Tea Party!

[Anonymous Coward]

Koch bros don't care about this.

Re:Democrats are idiots but the Republican Party..

[Atzanteol]

Considering a Democrat president ordered the assassination of a US citizen I'd say the Democrats are just as evil as you think the Republicans are.

Re:Veto

[Anonymous Coward]

If the senate fails to crush this bill Obama may well veto it. The privacy issue is one item but assigning that kind of expense to ISPs does not seem reasonable.

LOL

Two and a half years and Obama has only vetoed two bills. One was some political game with defunding and the other was a bill regarding forcing federal court recognition of notaries from states different from where the court is. Lowest percentage since Lyndon Johnson.

In other words, the odds every reader of this text will win the lottery is slightly better than our doormat president vetoing this one.

P.S. this is the same kind of "free pass" that works for warrants... the amount of warrant requests that are denied are amazingly small.

Small government Tea Partyers at your service

[Omnifarious]

Yep, this is what the small-government people want. More regulation and requirements on business so it can continue to innovate. This is government getting out of the way.

I hate the way this group lies blatantly. The rampant hypocrisy and lying is endemic to this movement. I hope you small government fiscal conservative types take note here. Or maybe you should stop telling yourselves that's what you stand for.