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maelorin at 10:44pm on 03/06/2006 under data collection, fbi, fraud, ip theft, isp, legal, pornography, surveillance, terrorism, usa, usdojThe plot is getting thicker. And scope creep is already setting in.Friday, June 02, 2006
DOJ wants ISP help in tracking website visits, internet searches, e-mail traffic
Jaime Jansen at 10:50 AM ET
[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller plan to resume talks on Friday with major internet service providers on retaining customer data on internet activities that would allow them to better combat child pornography and terrorism. An initial meeting [JURIST report] last Friday included American Online, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Comcast; this week's meeting will include a broader group of representatives from internet companies. The Justice Department [official website] wants to be able to view records that could help them identify which internet users visited specified websites and potentially which users conducted specified searches, as well as determine who exchanged e-mails with whom without disclosing the content of the e-mails.
The issue of government access to detailed internet records is an extremely sensitive one. Earlier this year the Justice Department fought a legal battle [JURIST report] with Google, Inc. [corporate backgrounder] when Google refused to turn over index data or search terms [JURIST report] in response to a Justice Department subpoena [PDF text]. A federal judge ultimately ordered Google [JURIST report] to turn over a limited number of indexed addresses. Justice Department officials have also suggested that retained data could be used to control intellectual property theft and fraud.
The New York Times have more.
Surveillance all round, and this raises the real probability of post-factum surveillance.
"So, can you explain what you were doing looking at this website, on this day, at this time?"even scarier,
"We found that you entered the following search into search engine, on this day, at this time. Please explain."And, like all good government bureaucracies, some nameless Intelligence persona could bring this up years after the fact.
The whole thing is expected to be done by commercial entities, not government ones. The user will be expected to pay directly for this to be conducted regarding their use of the service for which they are paying. Regardless of whether you are suspected of any offence, reasonably or otherwise.
The Internet is for porn. And home invasion. Brought to you by USFedGov™
Smile. Someone [is|will be] watching. Warrants are no object, no objection, and not necessary™
It is becoming increasingly accurate to consider the digital/online world to be very different to anywhere else. A police officer needs to have a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity - or at least some real emergency - before they can enter your home. But, increasingly, that is no longer true if you have an Internet connection in your home.
[While the article refers to developments in the USA, there are signs that our glorious government is heading in the same direction - if they haven't already rushed past already.]
(no subject)
And the quantities of data involved begs the question of how it is to be handled, and secured. It also raises the question of why should users pay to have this kind of data relating to their use of the ISP stored, potentially for years.
I'm trying to get my head around trawling through terabytes of indexes simply to locate the gigbytes you need ot trawl through. A grid computer is going ot be requires just to navigate these data repositories.
Also, why is it OK to have corporate entities collect this information, when the NSA doing so raises a huge hue-and-cry - this is disconcerting to me. What is to stop a corporation - which owns the data - from trawling through it to improve advertising targeting, and so on ... ?
(no subject)
Actually, the corproations own the data because they created it. Copyright, amongst other things.
I'll be launching myself further and further into the murky world of Internet Regulation over the next few months ...
(no subject)
But in court, it would all look so increadibly bad. The disgusting porn sites. That one time you did all that research on how to make a stil. The time you decided to read some middle eastern news/sites to see what the other side was saying...
Also, like you I wonder at the practicalities of all this. More likely that the data will be used for commercial purposes by the companies who collect it, than for actual useful law enforcement.
Besides, I could be committing crimes in my house right now, which as I recall doesn't give the government a right to put a spy camera in my living room just incase.
(no subject)