Comments on: Terrorism invoked in ISP snooping proposal

Attorney general said Internet providers must retain records of Americans' activities to help in terrorism fight, CNET News.com has learned.

[unknown unknown]

Typical pattern, invoke hot issues to gain support.

Connect a proposal to child porn or terrorism and it's like trump card. In the 50's it was communism, today terrorism and child porn. Should this go through I suspect it's going to be used with certain provisions of the Patriot Act and the FBI's NSLs to go on fishing expeditions.

[unknown unknown]

Typical pattern, invoke hot issues to gain support.

Connect a proposal to child porn or terrorism and it's like trump card. In the 50's it was communism, today terrorism and child porn. Should this go through I suspect it's going to be used with certain provisions of the Patriot Act and the FBI's NSLs to go on fishing expeditions.

[m.meister]

Gonzales Terrorizes with "Terrorism"

Alberto Gonzales use of the "terrorism card" shows how weak
their arguments have been.

So far, the government has used past powers granted to "protect
us from terrorists" to do virtually everything BUT go after
terrorists.

The latest NSA phone tracking is going after journalists.
Apparently all journalists (that speak out against the
administration) are terrorists.

This is YET ANOTHER ABUSE OF POWER by this administration.
They use fear to force capitulation.

Enough is enough!

[aSiriusTHoTH]

Welcome to ... America

We can all welcome Nazi America... we are getting closer and closer. This time its not the Jews, its Terriorism. Just like the Nazis did in the early to mid 20th century, put a picture of someone or something that causes people to be afraid. This time its terriorism, which no war will ever defeat. "Enough is enough" totally 100% true Mark.. 100% true.

[kripto551m]

Gonzales Terrorizes with terrorism

I agree! Gonzales is using the terrorism card to enable the present administration and their corporate leaders to control the masses by 'tunning' into private emails and instant messages of the tax paying US citizens. It will help them find out what we know about them and whom will 'resist' their control over us as they implement the New World Order theme that they covet. They want control over the masses by using their 'terrorist card'. By taking away the liberties and rights of the US citizens they are tightening the loose around our throats.

We should never, ever let them take our guns away from us. When that starts to take place, then we know that a police state is fully in place and they will control us through a dictatorship that even Hitler would envy.

Viet Vet Kripto

[m.meister]

Gonzales Terrorizes with "Terrorism"

Alberto Gonzales use of the "terrorism card" shows how weak
their arguments have been.

So far, the government has used past powers granted to "protect
us from terrorists" to do virtually everything BUT go after
terrorists.

The latest NSA phone tracking is going after journalists.
Apparently all journalists (that speak out against the
administration) are terrorists.

This is YET ANOTHER ABUSE OF POWER by this administration.
They use fear to force capitulation.

Enough is enough!

[aSiriusTHoTH]

Welcome to ... America

We can all welcome Nazi America... we are getting closer and closer. This time its not the Jews, its Terriorism. Just like the Nazis did in the early to mid 20th century, put a picture of someone or something that causes people to be afraid. This time its terriorism, which no war will ever defeat. "Enough is enough" totally 100% true Mark.. 100% true.

[kripto551m]

Gonzales Terrorizes with terrorism

I agree! Gonzales is using the terrorism card to enable the present administration and their corporate leaders to control the masses by 'tunning' into private emails and instant messages of the tax paying US citizens. It will help them find out what we know about them and whom will 'resist' their control over us as they implement the New World Order theme that they covet. They want control over the masses by using their 'terrorist card'. By taking away the liberties and rights of the US citizens they are tightening the loose around our throats.

We should never, ever let them take our guns away from us. When that starts to take place, then we know that a police state is fully in place and they will control us through a dictatorship that even Hitler would envy.

Viet Vet Kripto

[Freiheit13]

Power by fear

This is the way our government is turning. Any time they want more power than the law gives them, they use the word terrorism and get whatever they want. Recent history shows that US intelligence agencies are spending more time spying on US citizens than figuring out where exactly Osama Bin Laden is. We have thousands of soldiers stationed in literally every country in the world and we can't find this supposedly famous and wealthy terrorist, but we sure can invoke the word terrorism to gain any information we want on our own citizens! Welcome to the government of the rich and cowardly.

[Lindy01]

Only if you have something...

to fear. Read my records all day long...publish them somewhere I could give a rats behind.

Most Americans agree...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051200375.html

NON issue.

[Freiheit13]

Power by fear

This is the way our government is turning. Any time they want more power than the law gives them, they use the word terrorism and get whatever they want. Recent history shows that US intelligence agencies are spending more time spying on US citizens than figuring out where exactly Osama Bin Laden is. We have thousands of soldiers stationed in literally every country in the world and we can't find this supposedly famous and wealthy terrorist, but we sure can invoke the word terrorism to gain any information we want on our own citizens! Welcome to the government of the rich and cowardly.

[Lindy01]

Only if you have something...

to fear. Read my records all day long...publish them somewhere I could give a rats behind.

Most Americans agree...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051200375.html

NON issue.

[enovikoff]

Abuse

Gonzales is obviously lying. The Justice Dept couldn't get this proposal approved, so they switched to their all-purpose backup, terrorism. This government will apparently lie about anything to get more unconstitutional powers. The worst part of it is that these powers stay into the next administration, which will abuse and extend them as well, Democrat OR Republican - they're all alike.

What can we learn from this? The government is us. It's acting out our worst sides. If we the people weren't scared sheep, greedy and power-hungry, entitled to stomp the earth for our comforts, we couldn't have a government that shows all these appalling traits. We have met the enemy, and he is us.

[masonx]

Yes and no.

I can agree with part of what you said - except the part about the government representing the people. Its a fact that positions of power - police, military, politicians, etc. can and do attract a higher percentage of neurotic, paranoid and socio-pathic personality types. Our leaders are not a cross section of personality types that make up the public.

[enovikoff]

Abuse

Gonzales is obviously lying. The Justice Dept couldn't get this proposal approved, so they switched to their all-purpose backup, terrorism. This government will apparently lie about anything to get more unconstitutional powers. The worst part of it is that these powers stay into the next administration, which will abuse and extend them as well, Democrat OR Republican - they're all alike.

What can we learn from this? The government is us. It's acting out our worst sides. If we the people weren't scared sheep, greedy and power-hungry, entitled to stomp the earth for our comforts, we couldn't have a government that shows all these appalling traits. We have met the enemy, and he is us.

[masonx]

Yes and no.

I can agree with part of what you said - except the part about the government representing the people. Its a fact that positions of power - police, military, politicians, etc. can and do attract a higher percentage of neurotic, paranoid and socio-pathic personality types. Our leaders are not a cross section of personality types that make up the public.

[Jackson Cracker]

Gonzales opposes all porn

If Gonzales gets his way this will be used to track all sorts of things-
child porn
adult porn
"terrorists"
"enemy combatants"
medical marijuana
hemp growers
whistleblowers
leakers

[MisterFlibble]

Add to that P2P...

How much do you want to bet that Gonzales is getting kickbacks from the RIAA/MPAA for this legislation? We already know, they pay him to do there dirty work, even overseas.

[kripto551m]

gonzales opposes all porn

Hemp should be America's number one cash crop hands down. It is not pot. Not by a long shot. One acre of hemp can produce as much fibre as four acres of timberland and can be havested up to four times a year instead of 20 -30 years for timberland. Hemp can produce superior paper in comparrison to would pulp paper. It is three times more dense than corn and can be used as fuel, feed for animals, clothing etc. It can be grown anywhere corn, soybeans, cotton, and tobacco is grown with much less need for fertilizer and pesticides. The corporate elite lobbied to get rid of the hemp farmers by getting congress to impose a one dollar a pound tax on cultivated hemp, shortly after WWII. Using hemp would substantially help the US to avoid the need of foreign oil. But it would cut into the profits of big oil and textiles and wood pulp mills so it was given a bad name by the corporate lobbyist and their propaganda machine. The US citizens have been decieved by the corporate elite and the pupet US congress that allowed this attocity to happen.

Viet Vet

[Jackson Cracker]

Gonzales opposes all porn

If Gonzales gets his way this will be used to track all sorts of things-
child porn
adult porn
"terrorists"
"enemy combatants"
medical marijuana
hemp growers
whistleblowers
leakers

[MisterFlibble]

Add to that P2P...

How much do you want to bet that Gonzales is getting kickbacks from the RIAA/MPAA for this legislation? We already know, they pay him to do there dirty work, even overseas.

[kripto551m]

gonzales opposes all porn

Hemp should be America's number one cash crop hands down. It is not pot. Not by a long shot. One acre of hemp can produce as much fibre as four acres of timberland and can be havested up to four times a year instead of 20 -30 years for timberland. Hemp can produce superior paper in comparrison to would pulp paper. It is three times more dense than corn and can be used as fuel, feed for animals, clothing etc. It can be grown anywhere corn, soybeans, cotton, and tobacco is grown with much less need for fertilizer and pesticides. The corporate elite lobbied to get rid of the hemp farmers by getting congress to impose a one dollar a pound tax on cultivated hemp, shortly after WWII. Using hemp would substantially help the US to avoid the need of foreign oil. But it would cut into the profits of big oil and textiles and wood pulp mills so it was given a bad name by the corporate lobbyist and their propaganda machine. The US citizens have been decieved by the corporate elite and the pupet US congress that allowed this attocity to happen.

Viet Vet

[jj45]

Where do we draw the line?

I may be a conservative and a general supporter of the Bush administration, but I am also a strong supporter of internet privacy and freedom. When it comes to the internet, the terrorism and child porn excuse only works up to a point. When ISPs start handing over massive amounts of data on websites visted, files downloaded, etc, to the government, privacy becomes an issue. We all have our skeletons in the closet, we all have things we might not have someone else to know, so why let some overworked government technician know all our secrets? Come on people, open your eyes.

[jj45]

Where do we draw the line?

I may be a conservative and a general supporter of the Bush administration, but I am also a strong supporter of internet privacy and freedom. When it comes to the internet, the terrorism and child porn excuse only works up to a point. When ISPs start handing over massive amounts of data on websites visted, files downloaded, etc, to the government, privacy becomes an issue. We all have our skeletons in the closet, we all have things we might not have someone else to know, so why let some overworked government technician know all our secrets? Come on people, open your eyes.

[webdev511]

America 2006 = Germany 1933

Give up those liberties folks, or you'll DIE!!!

What ever happened to "Give me Liberty or Give me DEATH!!"

No one in OUR Government ever get's called on this wire tapping program. Did everyone suddenly forget that it was a failure to communicate between government agencies, not the inability to wire tap without a warrant that let the 9-11 hijakers pass unnoticed?

[webdev511]

America 2006 = Germany 1933

Give up those liberties folks, or you'll DIE!!!

What ever happened to "Give me Liberty or Give me DEATH!!"

No one in OUR Government ever get's called on this wire tapping program. Did everyone suddenly forget that it was a failure to communicate between government agencies, not the inability to wire tap without a warrant that let the 9-11 hijakers pass unnoticed?

[dargon19888]

Don't Panic!

Lets look at the facts:

1) If the govt is looking to match dial up sign on to assigned IP address, well, that's already logged and retained. No big issue there.

2) If the govt is asking for a record of any and all online activity while connected, then again no worries there. Why?

Simple:
A) Its unenforcable. Think about the amount of logging that would have to occur and then the database retrival. The cost and size would have a negative impact on your ISP's ability to provide service.

B) Who exactly must retain what? Does Sprint have to retain the traffic of their ISP subscribers or resellers of bandwidth? In addition to that ISP tracking their customers?

C) Does this mean that these ISPs are not considered common carriers?

The point and bottom line is that those making the decisions do not understand the technology and have not taken the time to think things through.

And no, the US today is not 1933 Germany.
The big difference is that in today's world, the threat is real. And of course, the US today does not think about the problem before attempting to apply a knee jerked patch to try and fix it.

With respect to the article, its sad that the author tries to tie this back in to the Telco's opening up their call logs to the US Govt. Again this issue has nothing to do with that.

[Lindy01]

Ahhhh

someone with some common sense.

The year is 2006....technology is a weapon used by the bad guys whenever possible.

[J_Satch]

Just simmer slowly?

"in today's world, the threat is real"

True enough but the threat is NOT from the American people. This administration doesn't seem to get that.

[m.meister]

Place Frog in water, bring SLOWLY to boil

>And no, the US today is not 1933 Germany.
>The big difference is that in today's world, the threat is real.

FACT: There is no want to guarantee we won't be attacked again.

That is the cost of living in a free society. What is happening is
that our gov't has decided to remove those freedoms in order to
protect us. But again, we will ALWAYS be open to an attack.

If this administration was TRULY interested in protecting
America, it wouldn't have gone into Iraq, instead -- it would
have focused all its attention on finding Bin Laden and if they
were truly interested in stopping terrorism, they would first
focus on improving security on everything shipped into America.

This ploy by Gonzales is nothing more than phishing expedition.
Look how they're using the NSA phone tracking, to go after
journalists that have opposing views. Yeah, they're the threat
(please!).

Your comments suggest that you're willing to place your
freedom in the place of the water and watch it is slowly boiled
away. Like the frog story, the water heats up slowly -- so we
won't notice.

Remember, the gov't already knew about Bin Laden, the
terrorists and their plan -- and either didn't or couldn't stop
them before. NO, the "T" word was used to instill fear to seek
capitulation by the masses that don't know better.

[MisterFlibble]

Do panic, it is enforcable, it's what the EU is doing right now.

There are so many misinformation in here, I can't dedicate enough time to go through them all, but the EU has data retention laws that go BEYOND what you describe here, including the contenets of every e-mial and phone call made in Europe.

[dargon19888]

Don't Panic!

Lets look at the facts:

1) If the govt is looking to match dial up sign on to assigned IP address, well, that's already logged and retained. No big issue there.

2) If the govt is asking for a record of any and all online activity while connected, then again no worries there. Why?

Simple:
A) Its unenforcable. Think about the amount of logging that would have to occur and then the database retrival. The cost and size would have a negative impact on your ISP's ability to provide service.

B) Who exactly must retain what? Does Sprint have to retain the traffic of their ISP subscribers or resellers of bandwidth? In addition to that ISP tracking their customers?

C) Does this mean that these ISPs are not considered common carriers?

The point and bottom line is that those making the decisions do not understand the technology and have not taken the time to think things through.

And no, the US today is not 1933 Germany.
The big difference is that in today's world, the threat is real. And of course, the US today does not think about the problem before attempting to apply a knee jerked patch to try and fix it.

With respect to the article, its sad that the author tries to tie this back in to the Telco's opening up their call logs to the US Govt. Again this issue has nothing to do with that.

[Lindy01]

Ahhhh

someone with some common sense.

The year is 2006....technology is a weapon used by the bad guys whenever possible.

[J_Satch]

Just simmer slowly?

"in today's world, the threat is real"

True enough but the threat is NOT from the American people. This administration doesn't seem to get that.

[m.meister]

Place Frog in water, bring SLOWLY to boil

>And no, the US today is not 1933 Germany.
>The big difference is that in today's world, the threat is real.

FACT: There is no want to guarantee we won't be attacked again.

That is the cost of living in a free society. What is happening is
that our gov't has decided to remove those freedoms in order to
protect us. But again, we will ALWAYS be open to an attack.

If this administration was TRULY interested in protecting
America, it wouldn't have gone into Iraq, instead -- it would
have focused all its attention on finding Bin Laden and if they
were truly interested in stopping terrorism, they would first
focus on improving security on everything shipped into America.

This ploy by Gonzales is nothing more than phishing expedition.
Look how they're using the NSA phone tracking, to go after
journalists that have opposing views. Yeah, they're the threat
(please!).

Your comments suggest that you're willing to place your
freedom in the place of the water and watch it is slowly boiled
away. Like the frog story, the water heats up slowly -- so we
won't notice.

Remember, the gov't already knew about Bin Laden, the
terrorists and their plan -- and either didn't or couldn't stop
them before. NO, the "T" word was used to instill fear to seek
capitulation by the masses that don't know better.

[MisterFlibble]

Do panic, it is enforcable, it's what the EU is doing right now.

There are so many misinformation in here, I can't dedicate enough time to go through them all, but the EU has data retention laws that go BEYOND what you describe here, including the contenets of every e-mial and phone call made in Europe.

[afterhours]

Calling all spammers

Can you imagine the real treasure trove. We have the red herring of terrorism funding all of these Bush initiatives (the same guy who is spending and tax-cutting the economic future of your kids into the abyss) -- we've had a dozen or so successful attacks against us because we are woefully blind to how many folks hate us beyond our borders that have cost us trillions (mainly in inept responses, such as taking over a few countries or strong-arming others). But the real threat of this technology isn't to the terrorists -- they are smart enough to hide their communications -- no, the real threat is to the spammers. That industry that costs trillions in wasted efforts to hit the delete key, or building better filters, or buying lame software, or the morons who buy the fake rolex or viagra or herbs or sex toy or mortgage or... this is a cost to our economy that is far larger than gets reported, and is perhaps the ONLY thing DOJ is capable of tackling using this data. The terrorists will hide their trail, but the kiddiescripters need to look out :)

[afterhours]

Calling all spammers

Can you imagine the real treasure trove. We have the red herring of terrorism funding all of these Bush initiatives (the same guy who is spending and tax-cutting the economic future of your kids into the abyss) -- we've had a dozen or so successful attacks against us because we are woefully blind to how many folks hate us beyond our borders that have cost us trillions (mainly in inept responses, such as taking over a few countries or strong-arming others). But the real threat of this technology isn't to the terrorists -- they are smart enough to hide their communications -- no, the real threat is to the spammers. That industry that costs trillions in wasted efforts to hit the delete key, or building better filters, or buying lame software, or the morons who buy the fake rolex or viagra or herbs or sex toy or mortgage or... this is a cost to our economy that is far larger than gets reported, and is perhaps the ONLY thing DOJ is capable of tackling using this data. The terrorists will hide their trail, but the kiddiescripters need to look out :)

[J_Satch]

It figures...

...that Comcast would so feverishly lead the charge to kiss the government's ass and gleefully hand over anything asked of them.

Also, if Europe is doing it, why the hell aren't we avoiding it like the plague? When did it become fashionable in this country to follow Europe's lead?

[J_Satch]

It figures...

...that Comcast would so feverishly lead the charge to kiss the government's ass and gleefully hand over anything asked of them.

Also, if Europe is doing it, why the hell aren't we avoiding it like the plague? When did it become fashionable in this country to follow Europe's lead?