Once upon a time, the concept of mandatory data retention seemed almost
reasonable. What's the big difference between an ISP keeping data on
users for a year instead of six months? Rep. Diana DeGette & co spent a
large portion of last year talking about babies being raped thanks to
the Internet and how that could be prevented by data retention -- and if
they're right, who could be against the idea?
Well, it turns out that the Bush administration wants far more than just
that. In a private meeting with industry groups last week, Assistant
Attorney General Rachel Brand and other officials said they wanted to
target Web sites that let users upload images or video:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6163679.html
This is consistent with a Politech post from January, in which I said
that search engines, domain registrars, and Web hosting services have
also been talked about as data retention targets:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/01/24/not-just-isps/
Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what the Justice Department has in
mind. (A real problem is that discussions on this topic have been both
vague and secretive. No language has been circulated, at least as of
last week, so we can only speculate.)
-Declan
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