This link has been bookmarked by 8 people . It was first bookmarked on 20 Feb 2009, by Daniel Andrlik.
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22 Feb 09
Diana HarrelsonTwo bills have been introduced so far--S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act," or Internet Safety Act.
Each contains the same langupolitics law internet news netneutrality security privacy congress
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Art GelwicksRepublican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations.
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20 Feb 09
Daniel AndrlikThis is ridiculous. Essentially, if this passes as it stands it means if you have a router in your home or business, even if it is password protected, you need to keep logs of network activity for **two years**. From the article:
>The legal definition of electronic communication service is "any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications." The U.S. Justice Department's position is that any service "that provides others with means of communicating electronically" qualifies.
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>That sweeps in not just public Wi-Fi access points, but password-protected ones too, and applies to individuals, small businesses, large corporations, libraries, schools, universities, and even government agencies. Voice over IP services may be covered too.
Seriously, I can be held culpable if my router doesn't maintain two years of log data? I mean, I'm all for stopping child pornography, but it's boneheaded provisions like this, proposed by people who don't understand the technology they are regulating, that causes me to have absolutely no faith that our government can effectively deal with the issues of the modern age.
I'm not even going to get started on the potential privacy issues that this raises, as I'm sure the rest of the Interwebs are busy enough doing that for me.-
Translated, the Internet Safety Act applies not just to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and so on--but also to the tens of millions of homes with Wi-Fi access points or wired routers that use the standard method of dynamically assigning temporary addresses. (That method is called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, or DHCP.)
"Everyone has to keep such information," says Albert Gidari, a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm in Seattle who specializes in this area of electronic privacy law.
The legal definition of electronic communication service is "any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications." The U.S. Justice Department's position is that any service "that provides others with means of communicating electronically" qualifies.
That sweeps in not just public Wi-Fi access points, but password-protected ones too, and applies to individuals, small businesses, large corporations, libraries, schools, universities, and even government agencies. Voice over IP services may be covered too.
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Leo LaporteRepublican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years
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