Posted on 08/04/2011 12:59:21 PM PDT by LibWhacker
A proposed law designed to fight child pornography has rankled privacy advocates because it would require Internet service providers to keep 12-month logs of customers' names, credit card information, and other identifying information that are tied to temporarily assigned network addresses.
Opponents say the law wouldn't markedly help lock up child pornographers and pedophiles, but rather would treat all Americans as criminals so that if law enforcement feels it has a need to find out who visited a website or posted a particular bit of content online, it can.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that the same data could become available to civil litigants in private lawsuits -- whether it's the recording industry trying to identify downloaders, a company trying to uncover and retaliate against an anonymous critic, or a divorce lawyer looking for dirty laundry. The group, which is asking people to contact lawmakers about the issue, also says that the database created would be a new and valuable target for hackers.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
It has nothing to do with child pornography, that's just the "for the chhillldreeennn" angle they are using to push this through. It is about government monitoring and eventual censorship of the internet. Any purveyor of child porn, is simply going to avoid the law by connecting to a non-secure wi-fi connection like they have in millions of cafe's, restaurants and hotels across the nation. (not to mention the millions of residential customers who don't bother to secure their connections). Obama's internet czar has already spoke of the need of an "internet users license" that would eliminate anonymity and all Americans would have to have it in order to access the Internet, which would allow every site visit and post to be tracked (supposedly in the name of preventing fraud). The czar has also complained about "untruthful"("untruthful" meaning you disagree with them) attacks on the administration and their policy, such as Obamacare, and publicly wished for an internet mechanism where anything the government deems blatantly untrue could be purged. He also has spoken of the need for people surfing the internet to be given both sides of an issue, so if sites like free republic would be forced to prominently post links to the Whitehouse or DU on every story so people could have the option of getting the "other side".
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