Action: Congress wants to monitor all emails, IMs, etc.

Thanks to Democracy Cell Project for the link, very much appreciated.

Reading the bill, I understand it to require that ISPs retain customer billing data, et cetera, indefinately, but I don’t see anything about logging every webpage, email, et cetera. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s an useless bill, as written, but I’m not convinved it’s as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

If it raises the awareness of a few people about their vulnerability to being snooped on by their service providers, though, then I’m glad it’s getting attention, anyway.

People will use the issue of child protection to support any idea, to rationalize any form of attack and to do anything they wish.

Time to start using secure IM, secure email and HTTPS for everything…

Just in case you all are a bit slow. The Feds have been able to do everything this bill wants to do for a very long time. Just check out CALEA. And, BTW, the requirements of this proposed bill are nothing compared to CALEA.

Get over it!

There are many ISPs who have been asked to perform records retention already. And, many of them do it as a matter of policy. There are even some who already do a full 72 hour spill of all traffic and keep it available for the Feds, just in case.

Hi

Most smaller ISP’s simply cant afford to save every packet that is transmitted across their network. Passing this bill will be a financial burden that unnecessarily increases the cost for the internet to exist, thus would limit users by simply making it unaffordable for low income groups because it will force the base price of internet access to increase.

More importantly, the US government already has unlimited access to monitor every packet delivered across the internet within the US without a warrant, so in that respect this bill is a smoke screen that means nothing. However, this bill will simply raise the over head costs for smaller ISP’s, eventually forcing them out of the business. Ultimately, this means fewer ISPs where only the major providers are left. Fewer companies equals less to monitor equals easier to monitor all traffic. It really has nothing to do with protecting children at all. I will leave the rest to your imagination.

Sincerely,

Already Comprimised

As a parent of a 6 year old, I can simpathize with the side that wants better tools in place to catch the would be child molestors and such. BUT, I also work in the infomation security field and absolutely REFUSE to believe that they would trample on our rights to privacy by wanting to log everything that leaves and enters my family computer though their network.

My personal stance on it is this… If the people that are so worried about this would do a little research and spend time talking to their kids, this wouldn’t be a problem. Again my son is 6, he already uses a computer on a daily basis at least, and I don’t worry about him. I have taught him to be cautious when it comes to people that he doesn’t know. That includes people that he might meet online. He also knows that if he has any questions about anything, that he can come to me about it.

The method of actually talking to your kids in a language they can understand might seem like a foreign thing for someone to do, but it’s actually not that hard. Open a dialog, let them ask whatever they want, but give them truthful answers. Don’t try to shield or shelter them from the world. If you do then it is going to create a void in their life between what they think they know, and what is really going on around them.

The point i’m trying to make, is to just talk to your kids, and start it early. My parents didn’t do that with me, and it was a huge undertaking for me to understand and comprehend the difference between what I was taught and was is real.

Thanks for all of the comments and links. I’ll be doing a follow-up post sometime tonight and will link to it in another comment here.

Those who have found their way to The Seminal via this post, please take the time to check out the rest of the site. We have several great writers here and a lot of interesting content.

Why is it that we will let children be used to justify ANYTHING!! I seen in Ohio, they are not thinking about banning smoking in your car to protect the kids. Even if you are single, and will never have kids, you will still be unable to smoke in your car…because we all know, WE HAVE TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN!!! All these laws are insanity….and definitely reminds me of the years leading up to fascist Hitler, when things like this were used against the people.

I’m sorry Madelyn… were you in Europe or Germany all “those years leading up to fascist Hitler”? Please do not confuse misguided although sincere attempts to protect children with the holocaust. Maybe you would have stronger feelings about the protection children need if you had any…?

#19 Kristi,

It is not clear that this is a “misguided although sincere attempt to protect children.” It is entirely possible that he was using that as political cover to advance a far more insidious agenda.

“kristi Says:

I’m sorry Madelyn… were you in Europe or Germany all “those years leading up to fascist Hitler”? Please do not confuse misguided although sincere attempts to protect children with the holocaust. Maybe you would have stronger feelings about the protection children need if you had any…?”

Kristi, please take care of your own kids.
Sincere attempts? How do you know what’s going through these corrupt politico’s minds. Remember, we having warrantless wiretapping scandals we still need to investigate. The American politio’s are the most INSINCERE “people” ever to roam the earth.
Frankly, I doubt this law can be enforced. Does anybody realize how much storage space is going to be required to file this stuff indefinately?
I wonder if Seagate, Maxtor and Western digital, all makers of disk drives are the lobbiests behind this impending debacle.

First, it was the Patriot Act - 800 pages not read by most of those who signed it. During Clinton, we had the Anti-Terrorism Act.
And now its the SAFETY Act? This looks like more (abuse of) power to monitor and control US than anyone else. And they do have the tools to track and monitor child predators and terrorists. Why do they need more?

BTW, thanks for the CALEA reminder. We always need to remind ourselves of previous abuses of power in addition to new ones.

Let’s be sure it includes provisions designed to monitor in detail all the deposits into the checkbooks of the congressmen, and all of their internet activity. Iam surethey will exemp themselves from it ( for “security” ) reasons, mind you…………

This is GREAT! This is truly a great “act” by the government. Anyone who opposes this is obviously insane. See, it’s easier for the government to put something like this in effect, instead of parents just doing their jobs and watching what their kids do. That is too complicated and takes too much effort. I am not mocking this in any way. I really hope this passes along with the government putting cameras in our houses so they can watch me touch myself at night!

There may be a way around all of this. Every search that every person sends out needs illegal searches added to it. Say a person types in a search for boats, when they hit return, some software will attach every imaginable illegal tagword to that search. Government should have fun with that.

Online Reaction to Proposed Bill for Government to Require ISPs to Retain All Tracking Data Indefinitely…

I’ve been tracking reaction to the announcement from U.S. Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican, a couple of weeks ago called the SAFETY Act, which is short for the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act. Accor…

I wish I could read it! Your website seems to be down…

I wish I could read it! Your website seems to be down…

Back up! Very nice site! Tracking the larger response to this bill should be very interesting as things develop.

Isn’t it kind of obvious that this sort of thing was bound to happen? To me it’s obvious that it’ll eventually get passed in one form or another.

This move means well, but it is a bad move , we dont
I need big brother to watch our kids, we as parents should be watching for creeps who want to do sick shit to our kids.
I lean mostly to the right, but this bill would just be a political posturing over kill trying to look like ” Dudly Doright “

anyone watch c-span last night ?
Senators Brown and Dorgan drilling Haliburtons vice pres. on doing buisness with Iran out of Dubai subsidiary office.

Did not see it, but maybe I should try and find it on youtube… Not surprising though, there is way too much money tangled up in the Middle East for us to make informed policy decisions.

Sherry Williams {vice pres & corporate sect.}answering to senators Brown & Dorgan over the money trail from satellite offices and subsidiary’s.
Victor Comras {terrorism financial analyst}was explaining the risk and is it really in the U.S. interest etc… And William Thompson {NYC comptroller}
I mean what the fuck ! Our govt. is threatning sanctions and we got a U.S. company helping build there infrastructue,I guess monet does trump everything.I view myself independent leaning a little right. But this shit pissed me off and got me all lit up.
Anyone got any info ? This crap needs to be put out in the open.
Shit J-RO! I think the polocies have already been made.

Sorry people, I have to brush up my typing skills

The military industrial complex is pretty unstoppble…have you checked out anything on Blackwater? For a brief overview check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_USA

Basically, with mercenaries Bush has effectively doubled the number of fighting forces in Iraq. Couple that with the billions Halliburton and others have made on the war and you’ve got a bunch of Bush cronies getting very rich off of the blood of the Iraqi people.

Hmmm , Maybe I shouldnt do the political thing with you. I think we had a good going with the music and I wouldnt want to ruin that,those exchanges were pretty cool and inspiring.
Lets put it this way. I’m a product of the flower child era. But since 911 and working a few blocks from WTC I feel differently. I still like my smoke , I still have hair down to my ass and I still play my music louder than anyone I’ve ever met.{quality system of course}
But I’m really not crazy about people flying planes into our people.
I’d like to discuss my views on your site , but I feel like I might be walking into a mine feild.
I’m all about peace, but I’ve become very defensive in the last 6 years.
I’ll check out blackwater, but I dont want to alienate one of the better sites I’ve been to

Well, above all we want to make you feel welcome here. I’ll be happy to debate politics with you, but I’ll take care not to attack you personally. That, I think, is of utmost importance.

But on the musical front, I’ve got a cool site I think you should check out. The post should be up in another minute or so…

I must clarify:
I havnt been to NY in 30 years , I live in Hawaii now ,but I cried my ass off the day I saw those towers come down. I wasn’t close to anyone in the the towers , and it was a while back. But those were the people I used to buy my dogs and newspapers from and I was well aware that it was a community in itself.

As a new yorker myself, it was a horrible day. Agreed.

yea! ,thanks for the open door, theres too much of all that mean spirited crap going on

I checked out blackwater and I’ve got mixed feelings about the need here or overseas for such an organization.
I can only assume that it has it’s advantages in fighting an enemy with no designated appearance, and who’s standards wont be taken to account by any authority.
There is the risk of rogue military mentality’s out there.I saw the you tube video and they look to me like a bunch of tweeking toothless rednecks.
But i think everything is subject to proof and verification, so I’m wondering why this hasn’t hit the mainsteam media more than a couple months ago. Or congress {mostly democrats} hasnt pitched a fit over this yet. Contempt prior to investigation coupled with political ambition has created massive problems in history.
Another way I might look at this that our men and women over there need all the help they can get. And if Bush proposed to re-enact the draft he would probably end up contradicting himself, and on top of that about half the country would shit.
All around its bad , but as it stands, to leave Iraq I beleive would make the holocaust look like picnic.We do not need Iran assymilating Iraq.They would sell that oil to the world and I have a good idea where the money would go. Bush , Clinton, all the way back to Carter. None of these guy’s had or have done enough to deal with radicals. I dont hate Bush I’m just dissapointed. I do beleive we should of gone to Iraq , but after that it was our responsability to not let it start festering with a whole slew of violent agendas.

I would say the issue with Blackwater is twofold. One, Bush has asked the American people for little or no sacrifices to support this war (not the troops, the average American). I’m not sure how I feel about a war where the public at large has no real investment in it. Second, these troops are mercenaries, with no oversight, which is a problem. On top of that, they get paid many times more than our regular troops and are much better outfitted. If they can command that price, why can’t the troops?

As for Iraq, you are right, we need to deal with the reality. However, I don’t think America can ever really make things right, we have made too many mistakes. There does need to be a presence there to stop a genocide or worse, but I think that presence needs to be multi-national and local. Maybe that means the UN, maybe that means the Arab league, I don’t know. But I think America has lost its credibility over there and we need to re-establish our international connections to have any hope of making things right.

U.N. , Arab lragues ,etc… don’t want to help , forget Europe. I will bet money that bad enough were not helping much in Darfur,human rights activist would freak if we let Iran cut loose on Israel and a couple other neigbors they have their eye on. Monopolizing the oil alone will colapse our economy. Re-establishing anything is hard when half these countries are scared of screwing up whatever deals they’ve got going on.We had to stop Hitler cause he said we were next, as a result we bailed out numerous European countries,theyre assuming , guessing or hoping that they will be spared the brunt of a serious attack.So it’s not in there interest to stick there necks out. Plus they pay a fortune for gas and couldnt handle another hike.
We all know good from evil. We just have to come to some “quick” logical methods and cut through the endless effort on both parties to make each other look bad.
Yea , O.K. you both look like shit! now what.
Politicians are like hollow musicians,
they worry more about their posture and their tux, than they do about the sound.

Blackwater prably commands the high price because they have less accountability.
They might be doing things that need to be done , but the military by ethics or laws cannot.
But again like I said; I’m not crazy about rogue militias. That is what they are. And now that I think about it I did see a segment on FOX highlighting them performing mostly security. But you can beleive anything you hear and half of what you see

I agree with you on Iraq, there are really no good answers at this point. First, our politicians need to stop fighting. Then, I think, we need to get out in the world and basically beg for help. I really think we need international legitimacy to stop a big disaster in Iraq. Right now it seems like we’re the little Dutch boy, holding our finger in the dam to stop it from breaking.

perfect analogy !
What turned me about this website was the agreement to disagree , and yet be civil.With all the diffrent ideas and opinions out there they just might merge to some kind of solution. If people would stop the conspiracy theories, false accusations, and name calling, we might actually get somewhere.
I’m going to spread the word that if you want intelligent civil debate and conversation to check out the Seminal. And by the way, is it written somewhere that other countries can only help us militarily ? They could make more impositions on situations such as who we and others do buisness with. Maybe not only Iraq but Darfur, human rights issues in N Korea and on and on

Totally agreed on international help. Military assistance shouldn’t be the only option. We need to work together economically, socially, etc.. to get things done.

And thank your observations about the community over here. I’d say about the highest compliment I could hope to get is that someone with different views than me feels comfortable airing them here. I’m glad you are going to spread the word, and we’re happy to have you here.

Stop it man ! I’m getting all warm and fuzzy.
I’m just a political hippie that hasn’t blown all his brain cells. I think.

I feel the same was as J-Ro, Micky. Thanks for becoming such a regular.

I just got my first computer 3 months ago and was just “floored” by the pointless nasty shit going on out there , debates everywhere that end up turning into a one up on you name calling insultfeast. You guy’s are refreshing.

I have a modest proposal, before any legislation can go into effect for common citizens, it must apply to lawmakers for a period of five (5) years. Every person holding public office will have every moment of their life monitored by cameras, all their internet activity will be logged, all in the name of national security. They will lose all privacy, including in their own homes, bedrooms and bathrooms included. All of this information will be made available for public consumption. We will also consider having a feedback mechanism, so that those watching can provide feedback to their elected representatives in realtime.

After all, how can we be sure that they are not producing child pornography in their spare time? How can we be sure that they are not taking bribes? How can we be sure they are not meeting with terrorists? Only with Total Surveillance can we be sure.

I propose that this program start with a beta test, I nominate Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) as the target of our surveillance. Let us give him a taste of the police he wishes Americans lived in.

The bill will be called SAVEAMERICA, short for the “Surveillance and verification enforcement authorization mission for equal regulation and classification act.”

@cantroll

You write the bill, I’ll support it! Right on.

What we really need is to GPS tag, track, video and audio record 24/7 all members of government!

Not only do they have a higher rate of criminal behavior than the general population but think of how much *safer* they would feel with 24/7 surveillance knowing that they’ll never have to worry about being wrongly accused of bribery or corruption again.

(Mmmmm.) Permanent record. (Drool.)

Congress isn’t going to pass this because they’re all busy covering up all sorts of things.

Having to include my email to post this is the very soul of irony, BTW.

I’ll play devils advocate.
Here’s the scenario;
We just sufferd a blow to all our agriculture, we are going to starve.
Al queda takes the credit. And the say the power grid is next.
We’ve got proof that Al queda is talking on myspace in code or at least suspect it . Should we wait for a judge to O.K. maximum surveillance. Or worry about the civil liberty’s ?
Soldiers are making a huge sacrifice to fight this enemy , shouldn’t civilians be just as engaged in this fight by giving up some freedooms ?
You can look all the way up my ass with a hubble telescope if you want . As long as my family is safe.
As it stands most e-mail and messaging is tracked for key words {bomb etc…}
If your conversation is intriguing enough , you’ll get some attention.
911 was a failure of communication on many levels , but we have to remember who the real enemy is.It’s not our govt. Incompetent yes, but not half as evil.
We have to make up our minds if the Bush administration is totally stupid or braineacs. On one hand they are a bunch of bumbling idiots {havn’t been attacked yet} And on the other hand they are smart enough to pull off some of the most diabolical stunts anyone has ever seen.{ Bush planned 911 }the list is incredible. They started the war for Haliburton etc…}
This aint the 90s folks , the earth is a different animal.And we better tre