FBI director wants ISPs to track users

Cnet ^ | 10/17/2006 | Declan McCullagh

[Panerai]

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday called on Internet service providers to record their customers' online activities, a move that anticipates a fierce debate over privacy and law enforcement in Washington next year.

"Terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet, as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms," Mueller said in a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Boston.

"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. "We must find a balance between the legitimate need for privacy and law enforcement's clear need for access."

The speech to the law enforcement group, which approved a resolution on the topic earlier in the day, echoes other calls from Bush administration officials to force private firms to record information about customers. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, for instance, told Congress last month that "this is a national problem that requires federal legislation."

Justice Department officials admit privately that data retention legislation is controversial enough that there wasn't time to ease it through the U.S. Congress before politicians left to campaign for re-election. Instead, the idea is expected to surface in early 2007

[GOP Poet]

It is all sort of wierd. I write fiction for a living and am always very hyperconscious when I Google words that this stuff could very well end up in a file somewhere and some times the content of my books and research there of can take me to some pretty sorted places on the web as well.

It is much easier to ease drop on the web, then on the streets in seedy areas sometimes. Overall, anything I ever write or explore on the web, I fully intend to see it someday used against me. Maybe I am paranoid or something or just realistic. One never knows.

But if terrorists are using the internet, I believe certain types of procedures and system should be put in place to access information or patterns that could help stop terrorism or crime.

[bwteim]

Thank g*d no one can read or track our correspondence on FR.

Must I use a sarcasm off tag on this post???

[Graybeard58]

I would go along with your scenario in number 34, if it were used soley to track and beat spammers and malware posters within an inch of their lives.

[Graybeard58]

I don't have wireless but am considering it. What is the range? Would it be illegal or possible to share a connection with my neighbor?

[PghBaldy]

I support the President and feel Dems and the ACLU go to far in their hysteria. I DO HOWEVER, have concerns about this, and many other creeping creepy law enforcement tools. EVEN if they get this, as others have said, it will be used AFTER the fact. How exactly would this make anyone safer? How safe is safe enough? I hope no one tells me if it only saves one life. Heck, we could save a lot of lives if no one drove over 5 miles an hour.

[PghBaldy]

I sometimes search for disturbing words written by libs/Muslims, and then post the info on other sites (it's called opposition research, IIRC). There are perfectly harmless activities that appear suspicious to the Feds. Sometimes, I have sent the info to the Feds, if it was a threat against the US or the authorities. I told the Pittsburgh Police about threats to shut down a recruitment office, and they showed up in force. I felt good about that. This idea though, gives me the willies.

[Jotmo]

Don't forget hotels. Rent a room in almost any Holiday Inn, and get wireless also.

[webstersII]

For the non-Unix speakers among us, what is "/dev/null"?

[Lancey Howard]

The soundtrack to "Wild In The Streets" produced a hit 45 back in 1968, btw! It was "Shapes of Things To Come"! "Free Lovin'" was the b-side. Hmmm......

Not only do I still have the 45 in my box of 45s (from the '60s, baby) but I was able to download the song. It's by Max Frost and the Troopers. I dropped my jaw a few weeks ago when I heard the song used in a television commercial, I think it was for a car!

[Lancey Howard]

By the way, I actually went to see that movie in the theater when it came out (1968). Been looking for the DVD for years and finally found it at Amazon a couple of months ago. It's paired with another movie as part of a double feature. It's really not a very good movie, but it is a window to the '60s like nothing else. My 22-year-old son was memsmerized. (I had to explain a lot of things. Man, am I old....)

I understand that the star, Christopher Jones, dropped off the face of the earth after making the movie. He was set to be a Hollywood hunk but gave it all up. Rumor also has it that Quentin Tarentino found him living out in the sticks somewhere and offered him the role of Vinny in 'Pulp Fiction' before Jones turned him down and the role went to Travolta.

[A CA Guy]

Get only a 108Mpbs, not a 54 anything and use Netgear products for range.
Place your wireless router closest to your neighbor at a window preferably.

A couple of average houses should be able to share and with laptops you should be able to use the net on both properties in the yard up to the street in most cases.

Sharing isn't loved by the company providing the service.

One would have to host and pay the bill and the other place would only need the 108Mpbs receiving devices.

[daylate-dollarshort]

Well...we're not here all the time...

[af_vet_rr]

Depending on what they want to track, anyone can be found guilty. Visiting a conservative site, for instance.

Exactly. What if the City of Chicago decides they want to find any and all firearms owners that live within the city and surrounding areas - one of the things they could do would be to go after the ISPs to turn over data on who visited certain sites related to firearms or other Conservative issues.

This is a slope that can't be climbed back up very easily - sure, today they talk about terrorists and child molestors now, but tomorrow it might be a bunch of liberals running the show, and who they classify as a threat to society might be quite different than who you or I classify as a threat.

[Knitebane]

For the non-Unix speakers among us, what is "/dev/null"?

Nowhere, the Ether, the bit bucket.