…it’s decided to give hackers a full year to steal your personal data.
To make it politically difficult to oppose, proponents of the data retention requirements dubbed the bill the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, even though the mandatory logs would be accessible to police investigating any crime and perhaps attorneys litigating civil disputes in divorce, insurance fraud, and other cases as well.
Also hackers, don’t forget them.
Say, can we private citizens use the same cynical ploy? I hereby redub the Balanced Budget Amendment as the “Protecting Children From Fiscal Raping Act of 2011“.
Vote against that, bastards.
World's Only Rational Man 
We need a “Stop Pretending Children Are Involved Act”.
Also, the bill should be amended to require the keeping of that info on politicians for as long as they hold office, and make it publicly available on the internet.
Sure, I agree. But then, I feel they should take drug tests, psych exams, and every other qualifier they put on us in the safety fields. If our jobs are important enough for those sacrifices, how important are the jobs which dictate the rules of the safety professions?
And again:
“The completely right way for it to be done is for congress to enact a law declaring that the constitutional rights of the people are fully extended, and applicable to, internet activities.”
The only constant right now, with nations regarding the internet, is the desire to abuse the people and debase their rights.
We need to force the issue and extend American Rights to the internet. As long as our government acts like it can do anything online, we ARE weaker trying to complain about, say, China’s abuses of it.
If the Tea Parties can wreck electoral havok again next year, hopefully the more libertarian-leaning Americans will rein in the authoritarian fiscal conservatives. We’ll see if the concepts of “limited government” are respected beyond the merely financial.
All those “internet bills” are always written by people who can, on good times, turn on a computer and move their mouse from left to right and up and down. None of them is even remotely qualified to comment on any issue connected to IT.
That data storage is a horrible idea. I heard that Germany, in the wake of Oslo, will start with it, too. But the thing is, it’s not going to prevent crime. It certainly won’t stop terrorists. These guys are fanatics, they’re not retards. They won’t write an email “We’re going to blow up the parliament in two days.” They’ll write an email “Aunt Emma is going to arrive in two days” or similar.
None of this will make the net any safer. And a bill to protect children from online pedos? Uh… isn’t that where the parents come in and parent their kids with, for example, checking what the kids are doing online? Not that the government can protect the kids from online predators anyway. And who’s going to look through all that data? Nobody. A program will search through it, looking for keywords, which is retarded and can be circumvented easily.
Such bills are bullshit.
And yes I’m back, and I still wonder why.
Glad you’re back!
I doubt anyone here will argue with you in your area of expertise. I would, if you argued for more stringent government controls. That you don’t is evidence of your understanding.
How are things in Europe, BTW?