WTF!?! - Justice Department takes aim at image-sharing sites
 

http://news.com.com/Justice+Departme...3-6163679.html

By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: March 2, 2007, 4:00 AM PST

The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned.

That proposal surfaced Wednesday in a private meeting during which U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, tried to convince industry representatives such as AOL and Comcast that data retention would be valuable in investigating terrorism, child pornography and other crimes. The discussions were described to News.com by several people who attended the meeting.

A second purpose of the meeting in Washington, D.C., according to the sources, was to ask Internet service providers how much it would cost to record details on their subscribers for two years. At the very least, the companies would be required to keep logs for police of what customer is assigned a specific Internet address.

[...]

this is already in place for some time now

Sweet. :)

Great news.

"the administration has argued that Internet providers must install backdoors for surveillance and has called for routers to be redesigned for easier eavesdropping." WTF!!! Every US citizen no longer has any form of privacy.

Bump for more views

i hate file sharing sites as much as anyone else but what mrpinks quoted is going way too far.

Good to know...

that's bullshit. I thought that the US was supposed to be the land of the free.

forget about it .........

well the good news is it should cut down on copyright infringement

lol not likely.

its likely to cut something :winkwink:

that router issue is scary.

You don't need the privacy anymore (actally you don't have it since 2001 when the government got a right to listen your phone when they need and for any reason they consider it necessary). You already live in the most free country in the World. So the government will take care of you. It's a most democratic government on the Earth so you don't have to be worried. The USSR ooops, sorry... the USA big brother is already doing all the best for your good. Just relax and let the big guys to control life.

P.S. The same was about 20 years ago in Russia (ex-USSR). Now it's your time to feel the power of the real freedom. Enjoy :winkwink:

Enjoy what is left of your freedom people. You are losing it day by day and nobody is doing shit about it.

wow thats really fucked up

All they have to do is claim it's for fighting "terrorism and child pornography" and people will just give their rights away..

This should be a matter that the free speech collation gets involved in. This would mean that any website, for example a TGP that allows other webmasters to post galleries would have to keep records of that person for two years.

Not to mention how impossiable it would be for a image upload site like flickr.com and sites like it. This would affect any site that allows anyone to upload anything. Sometimes I wonder how stupid the people in our govt are, then other times they just come right out and show it..

...as they already gave their rights away when the government decided to listen their phone calls in order to "fight terrorism". Just a herd of naive sheeps... :2 cents:

Why only TGP? For example, this board is not an exclusion as well...

Re-read my post and read the words "any" and "example"

Yep I did that, thank you :)

As about the freedom. The US president says everytime and everywhere that USA is a FREE country, actually he says it's a most free country in the World.

So here is a question for the US citizens. Could you please name here some things you are free (allowed) to do in the States that other people (say EU or even Russian ones) don't?

bump! :thumbsup

wonder if they are hiring?

You mean watching American Idol isn't going to save us?

And no answer to my question so far?..

That is unreal. Some of you guys think this is going to stop your images being pirated? Please. It will just reduce your privacy as a citizen and your images will go offshore, etc.

Bush is an idiot, all he has to do is screw a camera on every US citizen's forehead ....... all in the name of fighting terror of course

It IS the land of the free...the freedom for politicians to fuck with us.

Welcome to the Brave New World of America. Fear allows anything

Good read :)

People in the US talk about being free, people in much of the rest of the world don't talk about it but just live it. There are far fewer restrictions on individuals in many other countries and certainly less interest in bothering individuals who do not endanger the livelyhoods of the politicians.

The tragedy is that what was a slow erosion of rights since 1776 become a tusnami under GW Bush's "war on terror".

The only places I can absolutely say have less real pesonal freedom have Islamic governments or are contolled by China, Cuba or North Korea; but don't worry soon the US will catchup with them. There are probably some other third world locales.

cyberxxx... are you russian?

So true.

Text tgp's would be ok. And sersiouly if the site just forced you to register like gfy does and then kept a record for 2 years of who did what, this would be enough. If you go back to a 2 year old image on this site and look at who uploaded it would be tracable by user name.

You do not travel much.

Yes and just a little more freedom of speech without fear of future retribution slips away. Not that anyone can do anything about it but each one of these little steps erodes the rights of free speech and each one added to all the others becomes the end of personal freedom.

Sorry to sound so cynical but the current process brings tears to my eyes. The USA was the beacon of freedom and opportunity for a very long time. The current level of fear and paranoia is destroying what is still a great country but now on a very slippery slope.

I think what the Bush admin is doin is not great for us, the porn crackdown I can't even get into, but also I think people in the US are much better off than many other places... maybe its not about personal freedom, but in the way things get handled here that get handled much worse in other places

I find it highly ironic that the Justice Department is involved in doing something so patently unjust.

Reason # 9,389,102 to move out of the US

well thats not good...

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All animals are equal (but some animals are more equal than others.)

There is no question that I love you but this response does make me wonder about that old Canadian adage about not sleeping with polar bears.

That's a bit rude statement, Elli. The Americans just live in the police country and they can do nothing to change the things, because their government decides for them. Course they can protest against something but the government won't hear it (let the ppl. a right to protest and make them feeling "free"). However, the incompetent president is not a reason to blame all the country. The same was about 20 years ago in Soviet Union. The ppl. there weren't even allowed to protest against the policy of Soviet Party. However that can't be a reason to look at all the Soviet ppl. as at animals. They just were not able to change anything in a same way and even worse(!!!) as it happening in the USA today.

People who think this is a good thing are idiots. The government isnt going to use this to help fucking PORN COMPANIES.


The government is slowly locking down the internet, and everytime they take away our rights to privacy, they say the magical words 'child pornography' and people blindly support it, espically these old grey haired idiots in congress who don't even know how to use a computer.

Wanna stop child predators? Well dateline NBC has made it clear this can be done easly in any fucking city in america with simple undercover operations that only target the guilty - without logging everything we normal people do online.

If the government required everyone wear a microphone when they go outside so they can record everything for future review, and they said they reason was to make sure citizens arnt preying on children would you say ok??? Well, then whats the difference between wanting everything we do online logged?

Think about it. "Those willing to give up their rights in exchange for security deserve neither".

hah i was going to say i thought most of the webmasters would be happy about that

Time to start making your sites run over SSL. Cant eavesdrop that.