POLL: Do You Think The FBI Should Retain ALL Internet Records for 2 Years?

[Dunvegan]

Poll question: POLL: Do You Think The FBI Should Retain ALL Internet Records for 2 Years?

What do you think of ALL of your Internet transactions...e-mail, forum posts, credit card purchases, absolutely every keystroke typed on the World Wide Web being held for the FBI?

Is this further ownership of our privacy by Gonzales and the Feds okay with you?

I'm really curious as to what people think of this.

=================================

FBI wants Internet records kept 2 years

By Jeremy Pelofsky and Michele Gershberg
2 hours, 40 minutes ago

The Federal Bureau of Investigation wants U.S. Internet providers to retain Web address records for up to two years to aid investigations into terrorism and pornography, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The request came during a May 26 meeting between U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller with top executives at companies like Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL. "I think there is less of a willingness to passively go along with this type of request than there might have been a year ago," said the source, mentioning the recent uproar over a report that telephone companies had provided call records to the National Security Agency.

A Justice Department spokesman confirmed the meeting but was not immediately available to comment on how long law enforcement officials wanted the records retained. "This meeting was an initial discussion for the Attorney General to gather information and to solicit input from Internet service provider executives on the issues associated with data retention," said spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Gonzales presented blurred images of child pornography and explained why he thought retaining data was important to those investigations. At issue was Internet protocol addresses. When one industry executive questioned how long the government wanted the records kept, Mueller said for two years and that the data would also be used for anti-terrorism purposes, said the source.

The Justice Department has tangled before with Internet companies over gaining access to records, subpoenaing search data from Google to defend an online pornography law. The government cut the size of its demand and Google acquiesced. In that instance, Microsoft and Yahoo Inc. had turned over search information after receiving assurances that no specific customer data was involved. The IP address is key to unlocking what a person does online, what site they visited what terms they searched, who they e-mailed and what they downloaded, the source noted. Internet providers usually change the address data within several days to several weeks.

{Much more to this article HERE.}

The prime "gateway issues" used to begin infringement of privacy on the Internet seems to be "terrorism" and "child pornography."

It's the opposite of "Mom and Apple Pie"...those ready to restrict rights use these two issues that are repulsive or frightening to Americans, and then leverage that precedent to grease the slippery slope towards revocation of privacy.

I'm getting a little tired of this practice.

There are better ways to investigate and indite on terrorism and child pornography than keeping ALL Internet records of ALL Americans for two years (later, it may be longer.)

I work in Information Security. Three years of stored electronic data is considered the base fiducary level of data storage. That makes it extremely high of a level of public data of all kind from the Internet to hold.

The other thing is that it's worthless to keep IP addresses without the data associated with those addresses. So, this move is in actuality proposing to keep data also. Otherwise, a long list of IP addresses could be generated by computer by just enumerating the class A, B, and C address spaces. Which would be useless without the data to be investigated associated with an IP address. But, interestingly enough, that goes unsaid in the article.

I cannot support this move by the FBI on it's merits. Again there are better ways to do what they claim they want to do.

And, I'm hardly surprised to see Gonzales' name prominent in this story.


==============================

Do You Think The FBI Should Retain ALL Internet Records for 2 Years?

[Malamute]

1. This is insane.

The vet records mess was bad enough.

Can you imagine the impact of having all of our ip's and all of our data on file?

Man. The amount of abuse possible is staggering.

Abu needs to be muzzled and restrained before he gets access to the actual parchment of the Constitution and stuffs it into his fat maw to chew it up.

Hm. Come to think of it he's doing that already.

Makes me sick. Hell no.

[Dunvegan]

2. Welcome to DU, Malamute.

:hi:

Thank's for commenting.

It's appreciated.

[Malamute]

3. Hi. I lurk a lot and don't post much.

But I'm an IT guy and this bothers me.

This would be very chilling on free speech on the Internet.

And the vet's info being so easily stolen and causing so much trouble just says to me the idea of keeping these records on all Internet traffic is mighty wacko.

This Attorney General is more like a Stalinist General, if you ask me.

(Editing to add the emoticon: :hi: )

[alfredo]

4. So they can blackmail political enemies?

[Dunvegan]

5. I wonder. But notice how Rumsfeld and Chertoff DON'T use Internet e-mail.

They Haven’t Got Mail

The Katrina hearings haven’t only revealed critical information about White House responses to the hurricane. They’ve also uncovered the online secrets of Donald Rumsfeld and Michael Chertoff.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Mark Hosenball / TerrorWatch Column
Newsweek

Updated: 12:57 a.m. PT Feb 15, 2006

Feb. 15, 2006 - The business world and government departments depend upon it, grade-school kids are taught how to use it and Osama bin Laden’s followers have become skilled practitioners. But congressional investigations of government responses to Hurricane Katrina have revealed that two of the nation’s key crisis managers, the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, do not use e-mail.

During the course of their inquiries, which culminated this week in public hearings and the release of a scathing House committee report, congressional investigators sent the Bush administration extensive requests for papers and e-mails documenting how the administration responded before and after the hurricane made landfall on the Gulf Coast near New Orleans last August. The White House refused to turn over high-level documentation, asserting that communications between President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and their aides were covered by executive privilege.

When it came to documentation of how Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Donald Rumsfeld responded to Katrina, however, congressional investigators got a different answer from the administration. The House committee established to investigate Katrina was “informed that neither Secretary Chertoff nor Secretary Rumsfeld use e-mail,” reported Reps. Charlie Melancon and William Jefferson, two Louisiana Democrats who participated in the inquiry despite a boycott by other House Democrats who felt that the inquiry was too partisan. The Democrats made the disclosure in a report attached as an appendix to a widely publicized investigative report released today by the Republican majority which led the House Katrina investigation. (The Democrats’ report added that despite investigators’ requests for other documentation, “We received no other records we requested, such as phone logs, e-mail records of assistants, or other internal communications that would show how Secretary Chertoff and Secretary Rumsfeld received information, communicated with other government officials, or gave orders.”)

Spokesmen for the two officials maintain that Rumsfeld and Chertoff were kept informed during Katrina the same way as they keep in touch during other crises: through aides and a variety of other communications methods. “This is a large organization with a very competent staff that that kept the secretary well informed on Defense Department operations throughout Katrina,” Bryan Whitman, a Defense spokesman, told NEWSWEEK. Brian Besanceney, Chertoff’s top spokesman, said: “Every senior DHS official knows that, if they have important information to convey to the secretary, they go to his office or pick up the phone.”

{More at story HERE.}

[alfredo]

8. bush doesn't either. I guess they want to make it

harder for the war crimes tribunal to gather evidence.

[LUHiWY]

6. a foot in the door?

They use the child porn thing to get a foot in the door....using it as an emotional issue like the fear of terrorism.

I don't have much doubt that the information will be used politically.

I have no doubt at all that it would tend to discourage free expression of opinions online.

The war on terrorism has morphed into a war of the state against the individual...nothing more...nothing less.

Knowledge is power. Look where the power is being concentrated.


DO YOU STILL FEEL REAL FREE...BUNKY?


The Bushites got confused between New Orleans and Iraq....and they are now confusing terrorists with US citizens....eventually....in their minds there will be no difference.

[Dunvegan]

7. Straight from the "Works of St. George"...

...no...not THAT devil George...but George Orwell:

Welcome LUHiWY - :hi:

Speaking of "A Foot In The Door...."

WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

[CPMaz]

9. You forgot the option

"Sure. As soon as the ALL of the FBI's and White House's internet records are public information."

If the complete lack of privacy is good enough for us, it should be good enough for them.

[Vidar]

10. The only thing th FBI should retain is J. Edgar Hoover's formal gowns.