The overly intrusive Bush administration wants access to the web sites you've been surfing:
The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.This, of course, raises major privacy concerns. Gonzales and his crew claimed they want to use the records for "kiddie porn" and "terrorism." Gonzales always says something like that when he wants to invade the privacy of Americans. He knows everyone's against both of those and it makes it difficult to oppose the effort if they keep saying those buzz words. But, this program is far going to go way beyond that and Gonzales knows it:
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales held a meeting in Washington last Friday where they offered a general proposal on record-keeping to a group of senior executives from Internet companies, said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the department. The meeting included representatives from America Online, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Comcast.
At the meeting with privacy groups, officials sought to assuage concerns that the retention of the records could compromise the privacy of Americans. But Mr. Rotenberg [executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington] said he left with lingering concerns.Plus, they're probably doing it anyway.
"This is a sharp departure from current practice," he said. "Data retention is an open-ended obligation to retain all information on all customers for all purposes, and from a traditional Fourth Amendment perspective, that really turns things upside down."
