Throwing Away Privacy In The Blink Of An Eye
from the all-that-work-for-nothing dept
While we're on the topic of folks in Congress being inconsistent in their views, Declan McCullough has written up a piece questioning Representative Joe Barton on privacy issues. He's repeatedly fought hard for privacy rights and making sure that individuals' data are secure, but as soon as the election season "for the children" pandering started, he was one of the first in line. His proposal is to require ISPs to retain data for the sake of tracking down child pornographers and child predators. That's a noble goal, obviously, but it raises a lot of questions about why ISPs need to be burdened and (more importantly) why everyone else's privacy must be weakened. As McCullough notes, once that data is out there, it will be used for a lot more than just tracking down child predators. Whether or not the law allows for it, the rights to protect that data will continually erode. At the same time, just having that data available means that those who have access to it (or figure out how to have access to it) will misuse it or lose it. That's practically guaranteed. So, for someone so interested in protecting our privacy, it seems that Rep. Barton is working hard to wipe out an awful lot of privacy in one simple move.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I would go on about telling your friends but whenever I attempt to educate a non-nerd I get a blank stare. It's amazing how little of a shit people give about anything until it personally and negatively affects them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
duh
won't you please think of the children..
If you're not willing to give up all your rights to protect us from (terrorists/communists/nazis/predators/child porn/drug lords) then you must support (terrorists/communists/nazis/predators/child porn/drug lords)
It's the new America.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: duh
"It is not only our RIGHT to challenge our leaders, but our RESPONSIBILITY"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So What's the Solution?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: So What's the Solution?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: So What's the Solution?
My advice? Use all due caution on the web, and hope that the majority of humans you deal with have a shred of decency and intellegence.
**check out Daniel 2:44 and Revelation 11:18 if you're curious
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: So What's the Solution?
What chapter and verse was that?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
devils advocate
then ill wave as more of our freedoms go flushing right down the toilet
bye bye!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
teach your 12 year old to NOT meet that guy she met on myspace. if she's not smart enough to not give him her phone number, take the computer away. She's not ready for it yet.
Restrain yourself from NOT gambling online. if you lose your money, it's your fault.
Don't buy or make child porn. Don't let your kids get into it.
That's the solution. Take responsibility for your own actions instead of wanting the govt to do it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: responsibility
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
sounds about right...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: sounds about right...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: WhyNot on Jul 5th, 2006 @ 2:10pm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A little off...
BUT that is not the same thing as logging everything that you *do* with that IP. This is like requiring Taco Bell to keep a record of every Plate they see parked in their parking lot. Which is great when somebody starts selling weed out of the Taco Bell drive thru and the police show up with warrants for anyone that's ever eaten a bean burrito.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bible Thumping...
I also believe that lack of religion is not a barrier to good humanitarian life. I think religion has become as much, or more of a hinderance to a better society, as it is any help. I see so many people who go to church and act like good christians EVERY sunday, yet walk out of church and become chain-smoking, road-raging assholes, and think that making a silly cross over their chest will "save" them from all their vices of this life.
I don't WANT to know what happens when I die. I prefer to focus on being a good person now, and not get distracted by who or what is my motivation. My motivation is my caring and compassion for all living things. If you're lacking that, all the cross waving and bible thumping ain't going to save you anyway. In addition, I tend to disbelieve the bible and ten commandments, because I think of life as some kind of grand "experiment" by our creator, to see if he/she/it could "grow" intelligent life.
Thinking of this world as a science experiment, it's easy to see how coming down with some proclamation in stone of "here i am, here's the rules!" amounts to nothing more than tainting the experiment. Why would someone work so hard to create all this, and to not be involved in it, only to magically appear one day and say "ok, ok, here's a hint" Nobody as smart as your so called "god" would put so much work into a creation, and then "cheat" in such a obviously flawed way.
If there is a god, he's probably laughing his fool head off at your vain attempt to pretend that you "know" anything about him, or what behavior he desires from us.
Lastly, I would think that after all the millenia, centuries, and even the most recent events of our own time, people would begin to realize what I said. Bring Religion into an argument over what is right for the world gets us no where. As I said, using religion as your basis for argument only convinces people who already believe, and that gets nobody anywhere. If what you say is wrong, really is wrong, then you should be able to come up with at least one good reason why, other than "god said so."
For example: Murder is wrong. It cuts short the lives of those who may have had potential for doing much good in the world (read about the case of the mathematician, who probably would have beaten Einstien to the Theory of relativity, if he had not been killed in the opening salvos of WWI. I forget his name, but you should be able to find something on it). It also causes pain and suffering for family members, and in many cases, leaves a child lacking at least one parent, thereby contributing to improperly raised children, who grow up to be immature or otherwise useless adults, who screw up their own kids, perpetuating the grand mess.
See? I wrote up a whole good story on why Murder is bad, and not once had to fall back on god etching into some mysterious peice of rock.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
BTW...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ISPs are being burdened
ISPs should actually petition the Government to subsidize the costs, or to get significant tax breaks if this does in fact go through...
Possibly what may happen would be the development new hi-technology on the client side that would prevent the ISPs from getting access to the surfers links
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: ISPs are being burdened
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
idiocy inside...
well that and the um. 'naughty' sites using some sort of encyrption avalible only to members. mind you that 'protects the children' quite well actually.
i personally don't care about my online activity being tracked, you kind of get used to surveilance living in the uk, what with all the cameras we have here.
frankly if i get more spam thunderbird will handle it. as for 'government oppression' since when has actual evidence been required anyway?
as for the costs, actually i'm all for making it down to the ISP (they no more than the government anyway and that way people without the net arn't paying for it).
people wise up.. the customer pays anyway, i'd rarther it be a direct charge from my ISP, than 'funded by government' i.e. through a tax i'll pay anyway, but that you can bet will be higher than it needs to be, and lining a few more pockets.
frankly i see a nice market in an encryption supporting browser and some servers, all via good old xml or some such to make filtering it out at the server harder. yeah you can store it, the anonymous proxy i got it from, but where it (the data) was sourced and what it is.. well it will keep you busy.
oh and good luck picking it out from all the legit traffic.
pointless exercise, but if they insist, well it will happen, just don't expect actual results outside the ad agencies loving it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
oh yeah...
Sure...because businesses never fix prices, or line pockets...
Actually, I agree with you here. People without internet shouldn't have to pay for such a thing, if it gets done, and businesses probably have less room for pocket lining than your friendly nieghborhood senator, but above that I'm just plain against this type of thing. Not just because of being "spied on" or because I'd have to pay for it, but also because it's an astronomical amount of data, and that's wasteful, not just to pocketbooks, but the environment. Huge banks of servers to store all that stuff, and hardware for those servers, will come from natural resources, some of which are not renewable. Also, the electricity to run those data centers...and the heat generated by them. sure...we have an energy crisis on this planet, and global warming too. Why not contribute a little more, just so we can store a bunch of data on peoples internet activities, when 99.9% of that data will be useless to anybody, anywhere, ever. Not to mention, it gives internet servers another (complex) database to maintain and search. Isn't that going to slow down server response times? I don't really feel like waiting an extra 10 seconds per search so that somebody can keep a record of my pointless, and mostly legal, internet activities.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]