Republican Lamar Smith (of SOPA infamy) has a bill in the House titled, "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011". And just like SOPA, you have to wonder why in the world we need more laws that already cover these issues?
Here's the reason:
In it, the bill would require all ISPs to hold IP records of everyone for at least one year. It states that the data is exclusively for the use by the Government, but does not specify limitations of who within the Government can use it. So while it may seem that this bill is targeting one thing (child pornography), the reality is that Lamar Smith left the door wide open to anyone in the government - FBI, CIA, DIA, IRS, NSA - to access your tracks, for whatever reason.
The bill also - correctly - recognizes that there is going to be a cost associated with such regulation. However, it does nothing to address the costs, other than to spend money to study what those costs will be
Ironic, yes? The Government is going to spend money to study how much it's going to cost ISPs. The US taxpayer is going to get screwed over twice.
This may even mean the end of proxy servers within the US, for all intents and purposes. After all, why bother using a US proxy server, when they're going to have to track you, by law?
Who said Republicans were for smaller government and less regulation?
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