This is just wrong:
Top law enforcement officials have asked leading Internet companies to keep histories of the activities of Web users for up to two years to assist in criminal investigations of child pornography and terrorism, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller outlined their request to executives from Google, Microsoft, AOL, Comcast, Verizon and others Friday in a private meeting at the Justice Department. The department has scheduled more discussions as early as Friday. Last week’s meeting was first reported by CNET, an online news service.
Internet providers should keep a record of my activities for exactly as long as they need it to handle my transaction, and then it should go away. If a law enforcement official thinks it’s important to know what websites I’m visiting, let them go before a judge, show some probable cause why they should be poking around in my affairs, and get a freakin’ warrant. You know, like the Fourth Amendment says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Honest to God, these people piss me off.
Update: Brett Glass offers these relevant comments on Dave Farber’s I-P list:
As an ISP, I can tell you that what the USDOJ is demanding […] is not only an unprecedented, vast, unwarranted intrusion that should have every citizen up in arms but would be extremely costly and in many cases simply impossible.
For example, the article mentions that the DOJ wants ISPs to retain lists of the IP addresses used by every user. But we, as an ISP, do not give each user a unique IP address; we use network address translation, or NAT. To abandon the use of NAT would not only compromise users’ safety (by making them more susceptible to Internet worms and other attacks); it would also require us to spend thousands of dollars to obtain more addresses from ARIN and to re-architect our network. What’s more, the imposition of such a requirement upon all ISPs would instantly exhaust the remaining pool of IPV4 addresses at a time when most equipment is not ready for IPV6.
The requirement that all VOIP calls be monitored is likewise absurd. We don’t provide VOIP ourselves; we merely provide the pipes. We don’t even know when a VOIP call is taking place on our network. We would have no way to monitor and track every one on behalf of the government, even if we were willing to (which we are not; we owe it to our users never to participate in such blatantly unconstitutional activity).
Note that the government first attempted to use kiddie porn as an excuse to destroy our liberty, but seems to have decided that terrorism is a more effective excuse — despite the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11.
The belief that everything and everyone must be monitored in the hope of preventing possible criminal activity is a hallmark of a police state. Is this what the US is coming to? If so, the 9/11 terrorists have won. By killing fewer people than died in the recent earthquake, they have given an irresponsible government an excuse to destroy our freedom, and have successfully cowed the populace into allowing it to happen.
Every citizen should be up in arms about this.
Ed Bott 
And beware folks – the man just named head of your CIA and former head of the NSA does not believe that “probable cause” is part of the 4th Amendment:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002463957
First of all, I do agree with Ed’s points that the government should have to get a warrant to get at my web search history. Yes, the 4th Amendment does mean something…
But here’s an honest question. If the companies don’t keep the records, then just what good would a search warrant do? If the companies didn’t keep the data (i.e., keeping the data long enough to “handle the transaction”), then there wouldn’t be anything to hand over. Aren’t other industries required to keep records of transactions?
And here’s another question.
If the CIA/NSA asks an ISP for ‘Bob’s’ history, that’s one thing. At least they hopefully would have cause to be suspicious of ‘Bob’s’ activities. (I would hope they would have a warrant, but let’s leave that for now). However, if they start building a giant list of everyone’s activities and running queries against that database to find everyone who went to Edbott.com, CNN.com, and Instapundit.com in a 24hr period that’s something entirely different.
Sloop John B,
The companies can start keeping the records as soon as they receive a warrant in which a judge determines there’s probable cause to look into my activities. By the same logic, why shouldn’t all phone companies be required to keep recordings of all phone calls, just in case there might be terrorist-related conversations on them? Why shouldn’t all stores be required to keep video tapes of all visitors for two years just in case a pedophile walks through? Why shouldn’t FBI agents start surveilling everyone in Washington DC, just in case someone might be doing something wrong?
Doesn’t cut it. The requirement to keep these records is an encouragement for the government to use them in fishing expeditions.
Is Homeland Security giving ISPs free storage to help defray the cost of this? No? Then this whole initiative is pointless.
Coming up next: Bars, stores, malls, and restaurants required to file transcripts of all their patron’s conversations for up to two years to assist in criminal investigations of child pornography and terrorism.
You’re either with us, or with the child pornographers and terrorists.
Glenn Greenwald has written an excellent short book dealing with these Constitutional issues in How Would a Patriot Act? Unreasonable searches and seizures were a big part of why we founded this country wrote the Bill of Rights amidst a war of all things. I’m not willing to give up my rights just because the current administration says I should be afraid if I don’t. The only people I’m afraid of are those who think the “war” is against the Constitution.
Mueller and Gonzales have been picked over many others for the Internet Idiot of the Week Award
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/06/internet_idiot_.html
Ed,
Your points are taken, and I myself am fearful of how the info would be used given (1) how the government has already asked for reams of info (e.g., Web search records) for various fishing expiditions, and (2) how terms such as terrorism can be stretched to include almost anything you want it to.
I asked an honest question and got an honest answer. Thanks!