Posted on 02/20/2009 6:01:36 AM PST by rabscuttle385
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."
Two bills have been introduced so far--S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act," or Internet Safety Act.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
ping
I’m sure we can have enough hard drives for that and taxpayers won’t need to take up the bill! Thanks, Big Gov’t.!
NO!
It might even pass. Obamanistas would love to track down those people who make an end run around the redstream media and post real news about their scams. I’m for maintaining law and order but with the criminals now in charge it’s going to be used against the good guys.
Instead of so much warehousing of data, how about
LESS
warehousing of criminals?
Great, between this and taxing (TRACKING) your mileage, Big Bro’ is here...
And people wonder why Republicans get a bad rap. Sometimes a bad rap is richly deserved.
I’d go along with this, on the condition that all elected officials be required to wear webcams transmitting over the Internet 24/7 so we can keep track of everything they do and everything they say, and to whom they do and say it.
This, folks, is the bad side of the social-conservative/authoritarian leg to the Reagan Coalition stool. (And kudos to Reagan for keeping it in check as much as he did!)
Buy a big magnet and keep it nearby.
In other news: Anonymizer stock prices shot up while developers promised new spoofing software by weeks end.
We are heading towards Socialism and Communism and this schmuck in the GOP wants to tag our every website visit?
FUJC!
So much for smaller, less intrusive government.
Oy, these are the people who are making decisions? Geez...
This gives the Democrats another chance to chortle about how clueless the GOP is about technology while secretly preparing their own ISP-based version of the same bill.
Is the Gubbermint going to issue coupons to small business owners and consumers to buy the hard drives required to keep such logs?
“I’d go along with this, on the condition that all elected officials be required to wear webcams transmitting over the Internet 24/7 so we can keep track of everything they do and everything they say, and to whom they do and say it.”
BINGO!!And as long as they are”public servants” ..we, their employers, should be able to transparently view their financial activities on-line.
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