Microsoft has been able ...
FBI Wants To Log What You Do Online
The FBI is putting the pressure on ISPs to keep logs of what user do online, and then to keep these records for at least two years. FBI Director Robert Mueller is calling for the retention of user “origin and destination information.”
CNET has a great article up tracing out the history of the FBI’s call for data logs. From the article:
As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory. But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently do.
One has to wonder how all of that information is going to be useful. If you’re trying to parse everything that an ISP’s customer has done over the course of two years, you’re going to end up in the territory of Excel spreadsheets that bring even the mightiest CPUs to a crawl.
Another concern is whether or not such a law for logging data explicitly for the purpose of federal investigation in some way violates the Constitution. For example, American citizens are entitled to an expectation of privacy. In my opinion, this if you’re just visiting a website in your home that doesn’t have any social features, this activity should be considered private. If, on the other hand, you’re on a site interacting with users, then you’re being less private.
Personally, any proposals for data logging set off my internal Orwellian sensors. The FBI argument will be that more data will allow for better policing of criminal activity, but that’s also the problem: all of the user data collected would be more or less for the purpose of prosecuting people. And the last thing we need in the US is more ways to put people in jail.
Discussion - 59 Comments/Pingbacks RSS feed for comments on this post
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FBI Wants To Log What You Do Online - boygolly
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[...] Michael Klurfeld: One has to wonder how all of that information is going to be useful. If you’re trying to parse everything that an ISP’s customer has done over the course of two years, you’re going to end up in the territory of Excel spreadsheets that bring even the mightiest CPUs to a crawl. [...]
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Big Brother and the Internet. | Xenia Institute
[...] The Next Web | Another concern is whether or not such a law for logging data explicitly for the purpose of federal investigation in some way violates the Constitution. For example, American citizens are entitled to an expectation of privacy. In my opinion, this if you’re just visiting a website in your home that doesn’t have any social features, this activity should be considered private. If, on the other hand, you’re on a site interacting with users, then you’re being less private. [...]
If this does get passed into law, it will violate the Fourth Amendment to the very core. Our right to be secure in persons, papers and effects means our online stuff as well.
This is pretty damn scary. Not so much that they could do it, but that they might be ALLOWED TO DO IT. It is bad enuff that the BUSHman et al ALLOWED 9/11 to happen so that they could ram thru the Patriot Act, among other things. How do we know that the FBI, CIA, NSA, aren't allowing or even promoting terrorist activities so that they can continue to erode our constitutional rights!?
Newspeak? Doublethink? Thought Police?!!!! Incredibly, the UK just passed a law that people (even journalists) CANNOT take pictures of police ( esp. when they are abusing their position), and it won't be long before that comes here, although some US cities actually have similar laws on the books.. somehow.