"what would be the capacity of law enforcement
and of the courts to SUPRESS this kind of SPEECH?" -Judge A. Howard Matz, PRE-TRIAL HEARING OF KILLERCOP.COM
Here is the rule of law: Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins. And that's a fact! Why? CauseIsaySo!! You are not entitled to anymore information, 'cause ya got no right to it. Git it? I bet you will soon enough. I'm all a Twitter waiting to see your reaction, to my reaction, to your Treatment. You'll just die when you see what I have in store for everyone in 2010.
Now move along folks, nothing more to see. Make like a Quack and disappear like Dr. Who.
WASHINGTON--The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.
FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.
FBI director Robert Mueller
(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET)
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.
The FBI is not alone in renewing its push for data retention. As CNET reported earlier this week, a survey of state computer crime investigators found them to be nearly unanimous in supporting the idea. "Matt Dunn," an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the Department of Homeland Security, also expressed support for the idea during the task force meeting.
"We're not set up to keep URL information anywhere in the network," said Drew Arena, Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel for law enforcement compliance.
And, Arena added, "if you were do to deep packet inspection to see all the URLs, you would arguably violate the Wiretap Act."
Another industry representative with knowledge of how Internet service providers work was unaware of any company keeping logs of what Web sites its customers visit.
What remains unclear are the details of what the FBI is proposing. The possibilities include requiring an Internet provider to log the Internet protocol (IP) address of a Web site visited, or the domain name such as cnet.com, a host name such as news.cnet.com, or the actual URL such as http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/2001-6450_7-0.html.
While the first three categories could be logged without doing deep packet inspection, the fourth category would require it. That could run up against opposition in Congress, which lambasted the concept in a series of hearings in 2008, causing the demise of a company, NebuAd, which pioneered it inside the United States.
The technical challenges also may be formidable. John Seiver, an attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine who represents cable providers, said one of his clients had experience with a law enforcement request that required the logging of outbound URLs.
"Eighteen million hits an hour would have to have been logged," a staggering amount of data to sort through, Seiver said. The purpose of the FBI's request was to identify visitors to two URLs, "to try to find out...who's going to them."
A Justice Department representative said the department does not have an official position on data retention.
Disclosure: The author of this story participated in the meeting of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, though after the law enforcement representatives spoke.
Declan McCullagh is a contributor to CNET News and a correspondent for CBSNews.com who has covered the intersection of politics and technology for over a decade. Declan writes a regular feature called Taking Liberties, focused on individual and economic rights; you can bookmark his CBS News Taking Liberties site, or subscribe to the RSS feed. You can e-mail Declan at declan@cbsnews.com.
And the Wizard behind the curtain makes sure that what his buddy could not block and hide of the so-called "mistakes" and "violations of the rules and laws," by the officers and Matz, et al, all go away. Quietly dust binned.
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