Internet Privacy May Soon be a Thing of the Past

[Dirk Diggler]

Have you heard about H.R. 1981: The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011? If not, listen up, because this is a very important bill that is quietly making its way through approval as I type. With a name like that, who would possibly oppose, everyone wants to keep children safe. The only problem is that this act encompasses much more than child pornography, it encompasses everyone’s ENTIRE internet privacy.

Under this act, every ISP would be required to track everyone’s online activity including your name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, and save it for a minimum of 18 months. So basically, the government would be assuming that everyone is a criminal and they are just waiting for you to break the law. The equivalent of this bill is the government having someone follow you everywhere, everyday of you life and record it just in case one day you decide to rob a bank, or kill someone. Could you imagine???

California Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s recently proposed to rename the act “Keep Every American’s Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act of 2011.”

Why rename it that? Well Rep. Lofgren’s new title explains it all, once the ISP has your entire online footprint saved, all it takes for that information to be subpoenaed is an inkling that you have done something wrong. You don’t have to be under investigation for child pornography charges, simply being suspected is enough.

Which brings up another skeptical situation, what if you are undergoing a child custody battle, or a divorce, or anything?! Yup, your history can be subpenaed and you know how? No warrant is necessary, all they have to do is ASK. No probable cause is necessary, nice.

This act has successfully made its way through the House Judiciary Committee and its next stop is a vote by the House. You can track the status of the act here.

What can you do? If you oppose this legislation, you can go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and fill out an easy form to contact your state representative.

[MIJ-VI]

It already is.

Google charges feds $25 a head for user surveillance • The Register

More...

Google and The Internet

[bradjonesbass]

I've been pestering my Congressman about this constantly along with a number of other like minded people, with ZERO acknowledgement from him, but I am not going into politics on this forum as it's not permitted.

[NJL]

use a vpn

[jmattbassplaya]

Do you think your congressmen really care what you think?

[MJ5150]

Originally Posted by Dirk Diggler

......every ISP would be required to track everyone's online activity including your name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses,

My ISP already has all that, so what's the big deal?

-Mike

[Longhair]

Originally Posted by NJL

use a vpn

VPNs & Proxies are still traceable back to the source computer.

The only thing this law does is makes it easier for hackers to gain information.

[Strohsx]

ISPs, websites, and programs already do everything you listed, it's called logs if they didn't keep them they'd be doing their job wrong.

I can call up my ISP and get a log of everything my users have accessed at any given hour.

Read an EULA sometime, everything you do online including your web history and stats immediately becomes the property of the ISP, Site, Program or hardware you are using. So by laws already in place they can do whatever the hell they want with it.

I get a letter about once a year from my when someone comes over my house and downloads a bum torrent months beforehand.

Buddy at work had the feds knock down his front door and take every last electronic device, all they told him was "child pornography" no warrant, just a "we'll let you know".
Nothing ever really became of it either.

This will pass and there is nothing we can do about it because everyone is too damn scared of everyone else to give 2 balls in a sack about privacy. For christ sake you have to get groped by a private companies employee before getting on a train, we've got bigger problems than my ISP keeping track of my porn habits.