I just heard this story and I feel that it is goign to be another infringement into privacy laws. The FBI wants the internet service providers to record and log their members' activities online. For one thing that is goign to cost the interent companies a lot of money to start implimenting this and who is goign to enforce this? And who is goign to review all of the information. People can make sites thta look good but are really bad. How do they pick who is a threat and who is not? I say that it is just random selection.

Well it is not only to catch "terrorists" it is to catch sexual predators. The FBI complains that it has had evidence in the past about certain emails or some kind of online activity but the internet server providers have deleted the crucial information to find suspects. The Bush adminstration wants private firms to record the information. I think this is a bad idea becuase who will control the private firms? Our information will be in the hands of people that we do nto know and personally i would not trust.

I agree with attorney general gonzalez that there should be some sort of legislation about stating what law enforcement can and can not do. he is worried abotu privacy and national security at the same time.

what do you guys think?

i think that instead of trackign everyone, they should just track known sexual offenders by getting their IP address, as well as implimenting a program on their computer as a part of their probation and like that. as for terrorists, there is hardly a chance in hell that recording EVERYBODY wil lhelp them to stop it.

i swear if somthing like this goes down, so will most of the internet lol

I see no need for this at all.
As mentioned, there will be a huge amount of data, most likely stretching into the Terabyte range given a few weeks. For example, this week I have visited well over 100 websites.
This doesn't stand a chance of helping the nations security, as I doubt terrorists have any specific websites they go to, and you cannot brand anyone who goes to a certain website a terrorist.
It might have a valid reason to help track down sex offenders, but as soon as they realize that they can be caught this way, they will find a way to avoid it.

I certainly don't want my browsing habits stored, who is to say the company won't sell it on to other people if they are in need of some cash?

I definitely agree with your attorney general that you need some regulation, as your government seems to be introducing a huge amount of laws that violate privacy and calling it "anti terrorist measures".

In essence this is just another government trying to get more control over its citizens.

This new idea, if enacted, will do nothing. There would be terrabytes of data accumlated each day, and that would be a waste of time and a hell of a lot of money. And how do they plan on searching through all of it? It would take forever, even with exceptionally fast computers. And as said above, sexual predators will find another way to find their pray. I hope this doesn't happen. I like my privacy.

This post has been edited by ghostrider: Oct 20 2006, 12:35 AM

I think a lot more than just terabytes is accumulated daily. You have to factor in that there are thousands of customers, many of whom browse sites like YouTube and Google Video - videos can be really large. Nobody would really search through everything (or even, as has been brought up, be able to search through everything), but it's a breach of constitutional rights if they're tracking everyone including the completely innocent.

That doesnt mean they won't do it. Think back to the patriot act- wiretapping legalized while the nation was a frenzy of patriotism. If they have no qualms about recording our phonecalls or reserving the right to open our mail, why would they have a problem with storing our internet data? They already require libraries to keep track of which books they check out to whom and to report that, as well as to record each visitors browsing history if they have internet access. This is only the next step in rights infringement. If you are scared of it, and I sure as hell am, then watch who you elect and what their values are as well as what the laws you agree to let your congressmen pass ACTUALLY say. Don't let the fervor of nationalism or the terrorism-scare push you into capitulating your liberties, or mine. Yes, the terrorists are out there, and yes, we ned to try to stop-them. That also applies to sex-offenders, but let's a pick a more practical route that won't hurt the innocent citizens as much as the guilty.

Yes, but it seems to me that searching for keywords in phone calls would be easier than searching through multiple different kinds of data for important information. If they only searched for textual keywords, people would implement information into small flash files, easily and effectively getting around the issue, forcing them to find yet another way to do more invasive searching.

Yeah, it's a bad idea, and really not worth it for the slight chance of catching a sexual predator (but then again, I am not, have never been, and probably never will be a victim).

As they say they will use it - it seems a good idea. But I am sure that once they pass a law they will also start thinking of doing something else with that huge database. Anyway it's possible that they already have access to everything they need without any laws. I'm sure that they can pretty much know you're entire life if they want to ... it is not a matter of if, but of when.
It is in my opinion an idea to make legal something that they already do. You have to be stupid to think that an agency (CIA, FBI, ...) with a budget of billions of dollars can't trace an IP right to your house...

Definitely all the ISPs track their users but they donnot reveal them to others. But they do reveal to organisations like FBI, CIA, CBi to help them nab the criminals.