Big Idiot Is Watching You

As I mentioned below in today's StupidiNews, Republicans are looking to force another draconic surveillance measure down our throats. This one promises to be dead on arrival for a number of reasons, but I'm just shocked at how bad the bill is to begin with. It mandates not only that ISPs log every web site customers visit for two years and have them available to police, it also says that Wi-Fi access point owners must do the same thing...including small businesses and home wireless router users.

The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.

"While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. "Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level."

Joining Cornyn was Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let "law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals."

Two bills have been introduced so far - S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act," or Internet Safety Act.

Each contains the same language: "A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user."

Translated, the Internet Safety Act applies not just to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and so on, but also to the tens of millions of homes with Wi-Fi access points or wired routers that use the standard method of dynamically assigning temporary addresses. (That method is called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, or DHCP.)

"Everyone has to keep such information," says Albert Gidari, a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm in Seattle who specializes in this area of electronic privacy law.

In other words, this law makes you responsible for keeping detailed records of every web site that not only you visit while surfing the net at home, but everyone who uses your broadband router. You also must make those records available for police to view and use. Even worse, this law also may cover VOIP (Voice Over IP) services like Vonage and Skype phones, meaning you would have to track every phone call you make on them and have those records available too...not just your IP, but you because you own a router.

Since you basically need a router to have a home network, wired or wireless, under this legislation you become responsible for all data retention of every website that is accessed through it. Not your ISP. You. If you don't have these records, under this law you are in violation of the law and can face Federal charges.

This is such a shockingly bad law that I cannot believe this would ever pass Congress, let alone be signed into law by Obama. But I have to wonder why the Republicans would even bother to write such a moronic bill to begin with, a bill that has zero chance to stand up in court.

But the sad fact is both side of the aisle keep writing stupid bills like this. They died even in the Bush administration, but then again, they just decided to secretly track all this stuff at the source and not tell us about it. This bill would not only legalize what Bush was doing behind our backs (and frankly, what Obama is continuing to do) but would make millions of us complicit in the record-keeping apparatus as deputized I-SAFETY Act cops.

And you know what? From that angle, I can certainly see Obama signing this bill into law covering his own ass for the illegal surveillance apparatus that he has inherited...and has yet to shut down.

However, I think common sense will win out...not to mention I can see every ISP, every tech company, every PC maker, and millions of Americans all going "Are you KIDDING me?" Look, fix the bill, protecting kids from porn is one thing. Punishing the 99.99% of us who aren't involved in that is another.

But let's look across the chessboard for a minute here. Perhaps the GOP is trying to force Obama's hand. The GOP knows Bush's surveillance program is now Obama's surveillance program. Obama can't publicly lambaste this bill without getting blowback on the fact the NSA's already collecting all internet traffic. Either Obama has to end the program...or he has to sign this bill into law.

If he vetoes it, the leaks we'll see on the surveillance program will rightfully make Obama look like a hypocrite. He'll be attacked by the GOP as being weak on protecting America from internet threats. If he passes the bill, his own base will rightfully turn on him.

There is a way out...and that's to renounce the surveillance program now. Get rid of it, then laugh this bill off the floor. Obama's got to see the trap coming, but it only works if he plays into the GOP's hands.

Once again the easy way to beat the Republicans here is to simply do the right thing.