US Government May Impose Rules Requiring ISPs to Snoop on Customer Activities

[mandy]

The explosive idea of forcing Internet providers to record their customers' online activities for future police access is gaining ground in state capitols and in Washington, D.C.

Top Bush administration officials have endorsed the concept, and some members of the U.S. Congress have said federal legislation is needed to aid law enforcement investigations into child pornography. A bill is already pending in the Colorado State Senate.

Mandatory data retention requirements worry privacy advocates because they permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity that normally would have been discarded after a few months. And some proposals would require providers to retain data that ordinarily never would have been kept at all...

full article: http://news.com.com/ISP+snooping+gaining...=nefd.lede

related topic:
Feds want Major Search Engine search records
http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...258.0.html

[mandy]

Update: a bill is expected to be introduced in the US Congress this week that would require ISPs to log their customers activities:

It didn't take long for the idea of forcing Internet providers to retain records of their users' activities to gain traction in the U.S. Congress....

Now, in a demonstration of bipartisan unity, a Democratic member of the Congressional Internet Caucus is preparing to introduce an amendment--perhaps during a U.S. House of Representatives floor vote next week--that would make such data deletion illegal.

Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette's proposal (click for PDF) says that any Internet service that "enables users to access content" must permanently retain records that would permit police to identify each user. The records could not be discarded until at least one year after the user's account was closed.

full article: http://news.com.com/Congress+may+conside...g=nefd.top