FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited
WASHINGTON--The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.
FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.
FBI director Robert Mueller
(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET)As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory. But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently do.
The FBI is not alone in renewing its push for data retention. As CNET reported earlier this week, a survey of state computer crime investigators found them to be nearly unanimous in supporting the idea. Matt Dunn, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the Department of Homeland Security, also expressed support for the idea during the task force meeting.
Greg Motta, the chief of the FBI's digital evidence section, said that the bureau was trying to preserve its existing ability to conduct criminal investigations. Federal regulations in place since at least 1986 require phone companies that offer toll service to "retain for a period of 18 months" records including "the name, address, and telephone number of the caller, telephone number called, date, time and length of the call."
At Thursday's meeting (PDF) of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, which was created by Congress and organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Motta stressed that the bureau was not asking that content data, such as the text of e-mail messages, be retained.
"The question at least for the bureau has been about non-content transactional data to be preserved: transmission records, non-content records...addressing, routing, signaling of the communication," Motta said. Director Mueller recognizes, he added "there's going to be a balance of what industry can bear...He recommends origin and destination information for non-content data."
Motta pointed to a 2006 resolution from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which called for the "retention of customer subscriber information, and source and destination information for a minimum specified reasonable period of time so that it will be available to the law enforcement community."
Recording what Web sites are visited, though, is likely to draw both practical and privacy objections.
"We're not set up to keep URL information anywhere in the network," said Drew Arena, Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel for law enforcement compliance.
And, Arena added, "if you were do to deep packet inspection to see all the URLs, you would arguably violate the Wiretap Act."
Another industry representative with knowledge of how Internet service providers work was unaware of any company keeping logs of what Web sites its customers visit.
If logs of Web sites visited began to be kept, they would be available only to local, state, and federal police with legal authorization such as a subpoena or search warrant.
What remains unclear are the details of what the FBI is proposing. The possibilities include requiring an Internet provider to log the Internet protocol (IP) address of a Web site visited, or the domain name such as cnet.com, a host name such as news.cnet.com, or the actual URL such as http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/2001-6450_7-0.html.
While the first three categories could be logged without doing deep packet inspection, the fourth category would require it. That could run up against opposition in Congress, which lambasted the concept in a series of hearings in 2008, causing the demise of a company, NebuAd, which pioneered it inside the United States.
The technical challenges also may be formidable. John Seiver, an attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine who represents cable providers, said one of his clients had experience with a law enforcement request that required the logging of outbound URLs.
"Eighteen million hits an hour would have to have been logged," a staggering amount of data to sort through, Seiver said. The purpose of the FBI's request was to identify visitors to two URLs, "to try to find out...who's going to them."
A Justice Department representative said the department does not have an official position on data retention.
Disclosure: The author of this story participated in the meeting of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, though after the law enforcement representatives spoke.
Declan McCullagh is a contributor to CNET News and a correspondent for CBSNews.com who has covered the intersection of politics and technology for over a decade. Declan writes a regular feature called Taking Liberties, focused on individual and economic rights; you can bookmark his CBS News Taking Liberties site, or subscribe to the RSS feed. You can e-mail Declan at declan@cbsnews.com. 
I actually don't see what the big deal is.
It's not like the FBI would be personally spying on YOUR internet history. They would already have had to collect enough information from other sources to convince a judge to issue a supoena to the ISP requiring them to divulge your internet history.
Technical issues for ISPs aside, I don't see how this is any different than a bank being required to divulge your financial records if required by a supoena.
An investigator could get a subpeona on someone else, and include gathering all info on a certain web-site he/she visited, which could snag a bunch of others who they'd then go after.
"Do you trust this administration to not use the information for political purposes? I don't!"
I trust it more than the last administration!
One country is honest about censorship, the other passive-aggressive and unclear as heck as what is that they require.
But it all amounts to exactly the same thing.
If you want to "log" meaning record everything a person does online - all the websites visited, all the emails sent, the smallest of twitters to the shortest of comments --all speech that was transmitted - when you log that and make it available to the government, they can then go through the logs and take actions on it.
It's no different from censorship...it accomplishes the same thing, but it does so in such a way as to enourage people into self censorship. By not making it clear - at all - what throws you onto an FBI list somewhere, what will land you in a secret holding cell with no lawyer and no trial - is not at all clear.
And therefore you have censorship.
Oh because that makes us exactly the same as China. We are just going the passive aggressive way around of doing exactly the same thing.
LOGS=every last thing you do and email you send being recorded, btw. It's saying, the government has the right to find out everything you say and do about anything or anyone, online.
Not trying to be an antagonist, just trying to illustrate the not so distant future of a scheme with logging like this happening.
I don't need the neighbors finding out I regularly visit dreadfully decadent, deceitful urls like this one:
http://news.cnet.com
Oh - the horror!
You're now being monitored for subversive speech.
Of course, you wouldn't know that until they had enough to relocate you to the camps.
Sieg Heil - Heil Obama
Do you have any idea what those terms mean, "facist" [sic], Nazi, communist? Or did you just throw a bunch of scary-sounding words together? Do you know the incompatibility of combining "national socialist" with "communist"?
The nationalistic tendencies of this country have decreased significantly with the new administration, ad we live far, far from a classless society.
Is increased security measures encroaching on privacy disturbing? Of course. Has anyone actually seriously suggested biometric identification in order to engage in commerce? No, because it would probably destroy the economy.
The issues discussed in the article and by many of the posters are important, but by throwing a tantrum and comparing everything one doesn't like to Hitler (as happens so often on the net), it contributes nothing to a discussion.
To compare every single loss of liberty to measures taken by truly dictatorial regimes is not only an association fallacy, but it implicitly diminishes the historical significance of them. Attempting to change perceptions to equate a tax hike with genocide in terms of the amount of revulsion is an insult to those who suffered such atrocities.
Its not like FBI agents will scour though anybody and everbodies browsing records. All this would mean is that ISPs would need to log that information for a period of time, but they would only disclose it to authorities if required to do so by court order.
I don't see how this is an "Intrusion into our lives"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5398629
Yes, gunter AND they can't prove who was in front of the keyboard anyway. Yet they convict people. If you are ever on a Jury, and the prosecutor says "look what we found on his computer" ask them to PROVE beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was actually the one typing on the computer.
_______________________________________________
My boss already has, and has gotten a bunch of people of child porn allegations because of that. As my boss said "With open wi-fi, easily breakable encryption on wi-fi, etc..... even if something is on someone's computer you CANNOT be sure that it is then that downloaded it because of malware, spyware, virus of other sorts, etc."
The jury after being INFORMED by expert, non-paid witnesses (some of them even employed by the state) came down on the side that it was IMPOSSIBLE to be sure that someone had downloaded something illegal on their computers or not.
What if they then want to know whats news you are reading if you disagree with the government.
This is plain simple invasion of privacy. Just because they can do not mean they should.
every store, bank, or other buisness has them and they will happily give the "tapes" to the gov't
I agree with the idea of objecting to this but not unless you object to the other violations of recoeding me against my consent
"Here, give us ALL your data, ALL your phone calls, ALL your Internet history...Trust us...We'll just sort through it all on a fishing expedition and see if we find anything of interest....and we won't violate your privacy.
[CNET editor's note: Personal attack deleted.]
They obviously do not like what happened in Iran and Burma recently because in our so-called democracies it just seems to be getting worse and worse.
The analogy used in opposition to Senator Conroy's plan is this:
How about we build this amazing, high tech highway to join up all of the major cities in Australia. Now, to make it really super, lets have these fabulous highways that join to if from all the smaller, regional centres. This will make us all connected and enable us to communicate with each other better than ever before (the National broadband scheme).
Now, for the sake of the children, lets put speed bumps at every point on the highway to make sure it is safe. Oh and we'll need to pay for that so we'll now make it a tollway rather than the freeway. Oh and we'll put in detours for sections of the outback we don't want children to see. We won't tell you where those detours or sections are,. or why and we'll even go out of our way to ensure you can't find them until you are detoured off the road. Oh and you can still use all the unpatrolled backroads as per normal because we know that children don't travel on them, no of course not. (mandatory filtering at ISP level that excludes email, p2p, torrents, etc. The 'black list' will not be disclosed for scrutiny and transparency, nor will there be due process or appeal if your website is placed on the black list by mistake).
but I don't trust the FBI enough to have them to have my URL's for "2 years"
it'll start at 2 years but then there will be aceptions where they get court approval (ideally) to keep it forever
now 2 years, in 2 years 4 years and so on until it's over 10 years and they move to permanant storage of all sites, URL's, and keystrokes while connected to the internet
also to any FBI agents monitering the actions of me, Henry Lahman, SS: ****-**-**** (withheld for "privacy"), age 14, Irondequiot, NY 14617-2110 USA, This should provide you with my primary email address; the others are not really used and now I'm switching back to play on armorgames.com
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10444879-261.html?tag=nl.e703
Who will have access to this data in the ISP ?
the ISP is a profit making entity, they will sell it!
I don't agree with ANY kind of records, but if they are kept, they should be encrypted in the ISP, and only the authorities would have the key.
I don't agree with cameras, but i understand they exist for safety, and the recordings are kept for a small amount of time (weeks, don't know how long in the US). BUT I would prefer police patrols.
But in the end, this effort IS USELESS, criminals and pedophiles will use proxies and cover they're tracks. Before the ISP will have the capability for this, the bad guys will make it useless!
So the "good" guys will only have the habbits of normal people. We must ask ourselves who will profit from this ? and here lies the real issue.
How the hell are they going to store that? No server in the world would be able to handle that over 2 years without a hell lot of storage and maintenance!
And I'm not sure if that is the global figure or only Verizon's to begin with.
This is all a bunch of BUNK meant to take away people's right to privacy in order to 'protect the children', who from what I saw as a child and now as an adult, don't really NEED nor WANT protection from anything except someone snatching them off the streets and using them as... ahem, a '****-toy'.
Furthermore, I saw absolutely NO mention of anything like a "required court order" for the Feds to get access to this data. Maybe I missed something....
And it's text, compressed would probably go to 10 - 20%
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
You American's sure put up with a lot for a so-called free society.
evidence doesn't matter
evidence doesn't matter
Whether or not you are a model citizen who has never done a thing wrong in your life, this is extremely dangerous to add to the already enormous amount of data collected on you every day.
Far, far too often, this kind of data can be used against you, even though you did nothing wrong. The potential for abuse is always present, and you know this data will be misused.
We need to stop the government agencies from access to the information they already collect without your knowledge or consent. If not it will continue to creep up on us until we look back and say to ourselves "what happened".
Here's the problem, the legal code of the US is murky on what will or will not be a crime. The laws are written as such, virtually anything you do can be seen as a crime. Stepped on a politician's toes? Well, that National Geographic image you looked at 15 months ago is now evidence you are a child porn lover! And after the FBI has the media smear your face on national TV as a pedophile, see if you can live a normal life even if you are acquitted of the charge.
At least in brutally oppressive countries, the rules are very cut-and-dry, you know exactly what constitutes breaking the law, what does not.
Proof in a court of law is simply a matter of presenting the more convincing argument.
"Hey there stininkey, we believe you are trafficking in drugs as evidenced by your surfing habits among other things. We are seizing your house, your car, and your other drug assetts as we are legally entitled to do."
Due process was run over when they passed the laws that let them do this to citizens (aka US)
One small example.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/Property_seizures_seen_as_piracy_.html
The only terriorism that is happening is the terrorism the US is committing against its own population.
"We want to protect you so therefore give up your privacy."
I think Ben Franklin said it best...
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
At the heart of this effort is the fear that governments have over the free speech on the Internet. If people feel they are being watched the'll be much more docile. The powers that be are not happy about the Internet success in stopping many of their plans that the mainstream media doesn't cover--like the sweepng global agenda at Copenhagen.
- by medelegant February 5, 2010 11:10 AM PST
- Steppenwolf made a tremendous commentary about Amerika some 39 years ago.
- Like this Reply to this comment 15 people like this comment
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- by stininkey February 5, 2010 1:18 PM PST
- I think Stepincrap did a remake of this:
- Like this 1 person likes this comment
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Showing 1 of 10 pages (349 Comments)Still applies today.
From the lyrics for "Monster", 1970
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching