GOP: ISPs, Wi-Fi Must Keep Logs For Police

[sabra]

Source: CBS News/CNET

Proposed Data Retention Law Covers All Internet Providers, Even Your Home Wi-Fi Access, To Combat Child Porn

(CNET) Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points - even hotels, local coffee shops and home users - to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations.

The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.

"While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. "Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level."

Joining Cornyn was Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let "law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals."


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/20/tech/cnettechnews/main4814896.shtml?tag=topHome;topStories

[mike_c]

1. maybe they should start at the WHITE HOUSE....

Have I mentioned today how much I despise those rat bastards?

[wroberts189]

8. We would all love the last two years of WH web activity...

But they made sure to delete it.

[grahamhgreen]

37. Next, they'll record all our emails and phone calls... oh wait - they already are...

[truebrit71]

2. Um, fourth amendment much?

Blatantly unconstitutional....but not surprising coming from those idiots..

[wroberts189]

9. Blatantly unconstitutional yes.. and they will try it anyway. nt

[Taverner]

35. Blatantly Unconstitutional indeed

[toopers]

54. I am not sure I see a violation of the Bill of Rights . . .

but there is definitely an opportunity for abuse.

[MineralMan]

3. Cornwine again?

Nah. No thanks. You obstructed the recovery bill. Stick the bill in your left ear, hold your nose, close your mouth and blow hard. See? It popped right out, proving your head is as hollow as your patriotism.

[acmavm]

4. Truth is, the people that propose shit like this are the ones that need

to be watched the closest.

[wroberts189]

10. Some pub got busted who proposed such things.

Cant think of the name .... anyone?

[wroberts189]

43. replying to myself .. Larry Craig REPUBLICAN nt

[L0oniX]

21. That is so true.

[bluestateguy]

5. Oh that's so cute, the minority party has proposed a bill

http://www.womansday.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/galleries-slideshows/don-t-trash-it-reuse-it!/wastebaskets/38766-1-eng-US/Wastebaskets_slideshow_image.jpg

[skoalyman]

6. home users too yea like to see them try enforcing it

:evilgrin:

[wroberts189]

13. Yea..Knock knock ...we want to see the last two years of your web activity.

Where is you wifi router log files ?

Don't have them... you will have to come with us.

[CatholicEdHead]

15. Most home routers do not do this automatically

Besides until the setup program required it many did not even turn WPA/2 or even the easily hackable WEP on.

[wroberts189]

20. No router can what they want it to do ..even with a syslog server.

[Lance_Boyle]

29. if the bill passed (which it will not)

probably the only enforcement on home users would be that *new* routers would have to be made with some embedded flash memory to store required logs, and it would have to sport some sort of encryption mechanism so that it would be a DMCA violation to attempt to access it. You know, for the extra years in the for-profit prison they could tack on.

[Born Free]

49. if so, theflash memory on new routers will be altered...

The savy users will load x-wrt or something similar on their routers and use the new flash memory space for file sharing or something else more useful for the router owner...

[wroberts189]

11. Yea...like they are even relevant anymore. nt

[closeupready]

12. ROFL - Yup.

:rofl: :evilgrin:

[wroberts189]

7. Recording peoples web and email activity for two years ...

is an unprecedented invasion of privacy and ripe for abuse of all kinds including identity theft, corporate business secrets , political activists... etc

The data retention would require huge data storage and backups.. a huge burden on homes, libraries etc.

I thought pubs hated unfunded mandates.

Its always child porn or drugs they use to undermine the Constitution.

This is one of the stupidest ideas ever... they cant do enough with the tools they have ? Like hanging around in chat rooms?

I thought the nsa was recording all this stuff anyway.

And what about encryption? What good will this data do for them?

Will best buy have to sell cable modems with hard drive raid systems in them now?


STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID

knr

[droidamus2]

16. Another side effect

would be that many of the smaller wi fi providers and ISPs would probably choose to discontinue providing the service rather than spend the money and time it would take to guarantee the accurate storage of this information. Thus putting the internet and access to it into fewer and fewer and more controllable hands. Sort of like the Republicans have managed to do with the media.

[wroberts189]

23. Yep..its an attack on mom and pop isp's as well

It would require gigs and gigs of data plus backups... and the way I have seen other isp's run their security is not always good.


The email volume alone would required thousands of $ to implement...all that spam and all

[droidamus2]

14. Don't believe it

Whenever a politician, either party, starts talking about controlling or monitoring the general activities of all adults to 'protect the CHILDREN' I get worried. Of course, children need to be protected and child porn is terrible but this suggested solution is to basically be able to monitor all activity of all users. 'The Children' is a very convenient emotional tag that is used to try and convince people to go along with something they might otherwise oppose. Look at the 'war on some drugs' a big part of the selling of controlling what adults should be able to do is to bring up 'protecting the CHILDREN'. I don't have children and never intend to have children so why should my choices (as long as they aren't hurting anybody else including the CHILDREN) be curtailed in the name of CHILDREN.

[Amonester]

30. Bingo. CHILDREN should be protected by ...

THEIR PARENTS

end of story.

[cliffordu]

34. That's right when they pull the children out they are lying.

First thing they need to do is FEED all the children.

[Still Sensible]

36. Generally I Agree. It seems to me that this can be handled

through the search warrant process that is used for anything else. I guess part of the issue is that currently in many cases there are no records kept to be subject to discovery under a search warrant, as opposed to telephone records that can be subpoenaed or subject to a search warrant and are often a valuable tool in investigations.

Obviously any law enforcement organization would like to have as much information as they can, but it looks to me like they are able to--and do--nab child predators today without this particular invasion of everyone's privacy in place.

And frankly, it also appears that law enforcement already gets a lot of cooperation from ISPs on issues related to child predators or child pornography. So more than anything else, this is another right wing, republican publicity stunt.

[Akoto]

17. Deja vu. Wasn't something almost exactly like this shot down last year? n/t

[NBachers]

18. Reagan- "Isn't it time to get the government off the backs of the American People?"

[liberal N proud]

19. How many republicans would be caught with damning evidence

from their Internet logs?

[L0oniX]

22. See this list below of GOP asscarrots that would get caught...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/L0oniX/7

[liberal N proud]

25. Save that list for this right to privacy battle

[BR_Parkway]

24. They sure do focus on child porn a bunch - kinda like Ted Haggard focuses

on gay sex.

[DemWynner]

26. They propose these bills to help their next run

They seem to propose these types of bills that will not be constitutional but will sound bad on a 30 sec ad. "Your Senator voted against a bill to help the police catch child molesters" and worse. they know it won't pass, but it is one of those knee-jerk reaction type of things.

[scytherius]

27. Police work should only be easy in a police state. n/t

nt

[Soylent Brice]

28. OH THE IRONY!!! IT HURTS!!!

"While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican

if anyone knows about how children are harmed via internet, it would be a fucking republican.

[conspirator]

50. Yep. The police logs will show that republicans surf child porn nt

[guruoo]

31. Smells like a backdoor effort to shut down public access wifi

[AB_Positive]

32. Too often "Think of the Children" equates to loss of rights

My techie soul bristles at this. I almost want to go off wi-fi totally after this. If I didn't have my cute little purple netbook I would. This is pure bullshit aimed at making the telecom companies that much richer.

[PuppyBismark]

33. This Bill was Proposed by the Computer & Disk Industry

This is a stimulus bill for the computer industry. Now if we can just get them to manufacture the equipment in the USA, unemployment would no longer be a problem. Just think how much storage would be needed for ail this traffic!

Really, I can't think of anything that would be more big brother than this! And we were worried about the NSA wire tapping. Now we are asking the ISP's to do the data collection for NSA.



:sarcasm:

[wroberts189]

42. You are quite correct ...it would take millions Terabytes..and backups. nt

[Pavulon]

52. Petabytes

1024 T a petabyte makes. The energy to spin that much disk is significant. Multi petabyte arrays are very uncommon outside of fortune 50 and scientific compute world.

[dgibby]

45. I wonder how much stock the good senator owns in these companies

and how much in donations/perks he's received from them? As I always say, "follow the money"!

[Pavulon]

51. EMC and others

would love this bill. EMC makes stuff here. I think all buy drives from SE Asia. Not sure about NetApp for assembly. Big SATA drives are pushing beyond a T per. So it could be done, but is pointless.

This bill is a non starter.

[Robb]

38. I mean, they know it's a bad idea.

They must. Look at this thread. Someone on their staff must've pointed out half the reasons we came up with for why this won't work.

Therefore, look at the ulterior motive. As mentioned in several insightful posts above. :)

[B3Nut]

39. Politicians should be barred from making policies regarding technology

since they completely lack any knowledge of what it is they are proposing.

Only technologists are qualified to author legislation pertaining to technology. Home routers generally do not log anything other than when an IP address was assigned and to which MAC address and how long the DHCP lease is. Home users could never afford the storage systems required to log everything; indeed, most businesses cannot afford it either. And if you think the average home user is going to have any idea how to run a syslog server....are you kidding me? Someone should ask Mr. Cornyn if he knows how. I'd bet my coffeemaker he has no earthly idea, the dumb schmuck probably couldn't even program a VCR...I bet his old Betamax is flashing 12:00 as we speak! :D

Even allowing for ulterior motives (easy to imagine given noxious authoritarians like Cornyn et. al. behind this) there is no way this proposed idea could function in the real world. Sure, I'll log all network activity at home if the government buys me the required server and external SAN disk array and enough hot-swappable drives to last for 2 years, and pays for the electricity to run it.

Other than that, my answer is a firm "No." You want your children protected? Protect them your own damned self like you're supposed to, don't ask me to do your job for you. I'm not going to do it. I'm sick unto death of "TEH CHILDREN!!!11!!111!!!!" (sic, comic emphasis) used as an excuse to enact further incursions on our personal liberties. It's a pathetic cheap stunt and unworthy of any thinking person's consideration.

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[RamboLiberal]

40. As lone IT person at a small business what a friggin' nightmare

I'd have to put in equipment to record every time my users logged in, when I provided access for outside salespeople, visitors, etc., I allowed to use our network for internet access including our remote branches, etc.

Heck I just finished beating up on one of my branches for putting in an unauthorized wireless router pointing out how they opened us up to parking lot hackers.

[crimsonblue]

41. Fuck this. the "protect the children" argument is nothing but a boogeyman.

Laws like this fly in the face of the 4th Amendment and other privacy rights. Also, this amounts to government censorship, as it discourages discussion online (you never know that if what you say on a message board will come back to haunt you in 5 years). If lawmakers were truly interested in limiting children endangerment online, they would increase resources to the appropriate agencies, increasing their ability to track down unlawful content. Casting a wide net to include all data will only serve to make law enforcement's job more difficult, as there is too much data to sift through. In addition, it is relatively easy to identify the origin of an unlawful piece of information online. The respective agency involved only need obtain a warrant to search the ISP's records to track down the offending material. Those warrants are extremely easy to obtain.

[rhett o rick]

44. The Cons hate the internet. Our link to freedom. This is a bureaucratic way of shutting it down. nm

[usregimechange]

46. Nazis

[Froward69]

47. another way of prosicuting innocents

so if you stumbled across a foreign website and clicked away just as soon as you realize it may be illicit... you still go to jail. not to mention that penny ante poker game you enjoy... you see, that's Gambling!! can't have any of that!!!

of course the gop hated it when a Democrat proposed it.

A republican can smear shit on a parchment, the rest of gop will vote yes, and tout it as landmark legislation.

[IDFbunny]

48. It's all about the children.

So it's okay to take what little privacy we have.

[fascisthunter]

53. BS... these fascists could give two shits about child porn

here's your real "freedom loving" republlican. Freedom loving my ass.