[TriLUG] FBI director wants ISPs to track users

[Matthew Lavigne]

OK, only going to reply to one of these but can we keep the political BS 
and talking heads off the linux list?  I understand that this has 
privacy concerns but what do either of the threads posted have to do 
with linux?  Other then a direct copy (likely copyright infringement) 
and along with a link  there is no other comments in either post.

Please can we keep this garbage off of the list?

<brownwa at ftc-i.net was added to the killfile>

Matthew
enjoying the spoils of moving back to NY

WA Brown wrote:
> http://news.com.com/FBI+director+wants+ISPs+to+track+users/2100-7348_3-6126877.html?tag=nefd.top
>
>
> FBI director wants ISPs to track users
> Robert Mueller becomes latest Bush administration official to call for ISPs 
> to store customers' data.
> By Declan McCullagh
> Staff Writer, CNET News.com
>
> Published: October 17, 2006, 4:18 PM PDT
> TalkBack E-mail Print del.icio.us Digg this
> FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday called on Internet service providers 
> to record their customers' online activities, a move that anticipates a 
> fierce debate over privacy and law enforcement in Washington next year.
>
> "Terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet, 
> as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms," Mueller said in a 
> speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in 
> Boston.
>
> "All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet 
> service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help 
> us identify these offenders and protect future victims," Mueller said. "We 
> must find a balance between the legitimate need for privacy and law 
> enforcement's clear need for access."
>
> The speech to the law enforcement group, which approved a resolution on the 
> topic earlier in the day, echoes other calls from Bush administration 
> officials to force private firms to record information about customers. 
> Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, for instance, told Congress last month 
> that "this is a national problem that requires federal legislation."
>
> Justice Department officials admit privately that data retention legislation 
> is controversial enough that there wasn't time to ease it through the U.S. 
> Congress before politicians left to campaign for re-election. Instead, the 
> idea is expected to surface in early 2007, and one Democratic politician has 
> already promised legislation.
>
> Law enforcement groups claim that by the time they contact Internet service 
> providers, customers' records may have been deleted in the routine course of 
> business. Industry representatives, however, say that if police respond to 
> tips promptly instead of dawdling, it would be difficult to imagine any 
> investigation that would be imperiled.
>
> It's not clear exactly what a data retention law would require. One proposal 
> would go beyond Internet providers and require registrars, the companies 
> that sell domain names, to maintain records too. And during private meetings 
> with industry officials, FBI and Justice Department representatives have 
> cited the desirability of also forcing search engines to keep logs--a 
> proposal that could gain additional law enforcement support after AOL showed 
> how useful such records could be in investigations.
>
> A representative of the International Association of Chiefs of Police said 
> he was not able to provide a copy of the resolution.
>
> Preservation vs. retention
> At the moment, Internet service providers typically discard any log file 
> that's no longer required for business reasons such as network monitoring, 
> fraud prevention or billing disputes. Companies do, however, alter that 
> general rule when contacted by police performing an investigation--a 
> practice called data preservation.
>
> A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records 
> Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain 
> any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a 
> governmental entity."
>
> Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity, ISPs tend 
> to allocate them to customers from a pool based on whether a computer is in 
> use at the time. (Two standard techniques used are the Dynamic Host 
> Configuration Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet.)
>
> In addition, Internet providers are required by another federal law to 
> report child pornography sightings to the National Center for Missing and 
> Exploited Children, which is in turn charged with forwarding that report to 
> the appropriate police agency.
>
> When adopting its data retention rules, the European Parliament approved 
> U.K.-backed requirements saying that communications providers in its 25 
> member countries--several of which had enacted their own data retention laws 
> already--must retain customer data for a minimum of six months and a maximum 
> of two years.
>
> The Europe-wide requirement applies to a wide variety of "traffic" and 
> "location" data, including: the identities of the customers' correspondents; 
> the date, time and duration of phone calls, VoIP (voice over Internet 
> Protocol) calls or e-mail messages; and the location of the device used for 
> the communications. But the "content" of the communications is not supposed 
> to be retained. The rules are expected to take effect in 2008.
>