A bill now makes the online activity of every American available to authorities upon request under the guise of protecting children from pornography.
Last Thursday the U.S. House of Representatives’ judiciary committee passed a bill that makes the online activity of every American available to police and attorneys upon request under the guise of protecting children from pornography.
The Republican-majority sponsored bill is called the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.
It has nothing to do with pornography, and was opposed by over 30 civil liberties and consumer advocacy organizations, as well as one brave indie ISP that is urging its customers to do everything they can to protest the invasion of privacy.
“Protecting Children” forces ISPs to retain customer names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and dynamic IP addresses.
It’s like having your wallet plus the web sites you visit tracked and handed over on request. These logs are now going to be retained for the scope of one and a half years.
(I have to wonder if ISPs can sell this data, too.)
This has nothing to do with porn. In case you’re like the Reps that passed this nightmare and you’ve forgotten: pornography is legal in the United States.
It is pedophilia that is illegal. But for the sake of harnessing hysteria to get a bill passed, clearly these particular Republicans find it convenient to conflate “pornographers” as pedophiles. Last time I checked in on the matter, pedophiles did not operate within the laws surrounding adult pornography.
http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/house-panel-votes-to-require-isps-to-keep-customer-records/143668
