My Thoughts.I am 100% for stopping all forms of child pornography on the Internet. But don’t you think there is a better way then giving every US Internet user’s web browsing history to the US Government. Hasn’t the government shown us enough recently that they have a hard time keeping track of their own data, that giving them personal and in some cases confidential data is not necessarily the best thing to do.
Also, wouldn’t you think that it would be much easier for the government and the ISP’s to go after the publishers of this material? I truly believe that my personal web viewing, as boring as it really is, should be private. Do I want the government knowing what candidates I support for election, do I want them reading an email that I sent to a business partner about a new project, let alone possibly losing it.
What do you think of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ plan to attempt to get congress to require Internet providers to preserve customer records, asserting that prosecutors need them to fight child pornography.
Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller have met with several Internet providers, including Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, Comcast Corp., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.
The law enforcement officials have indicated to the companies they must retain customer records, possibly for two years. The companies have discussed strengthening their retention periods — which currently run the gamut from a few days to about a year — to help avoid legislation.
During those meetings, which took place earlier this summer, Justice Department officials asserted that customer records would help them investigate child pornography cases. But the FBI also said during the meetings that such records would help their terrorism investigations, said one person who attended the meetings but spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings were intended to be private.
Testifying to a Senate panel, Gonzales acknowledged the concerns of some company executives who say legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on customers’ privacy rights. But he said the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great.
“This is a problem that requires federal legislation,” Gonzales told the Senate Banking Committee. “We need information. Information helps us makes cases.”
He called the government’s lack of access to customer data the biggest obstacle to deterring child porn.
“We have to find a way for Internet service providers to retain information for a period of time so we can go back with a legal process to get them,” he said.
At today’s hearing, Gonzales said he agreed with the sentiment of 49 state attorneys general who in a June letter to Congress expressed support for a federal law that would require longer retention of customer records.
“We respect civil liberties, but we have to harmonize this so we can get more information,” he said.
Follow the links below to see what sometimes happens to that information.
FBI Looses Laptops
US Census Bureau Loses Laptops
Computer Missing in Child Pornography Case
