More Nanny State Attacks on Internet Freedom

Last week, I wrote about the effort by Congress to kill internet neutrality and hand the medium over the massive corporations and relegate those of us not willing to pay big bucks to the slow lane. Now comes word of Congress critter Diana DeGette's proposal to force ISPs to "retain records of their users’ activities," an idea supported by AG Alberto Gonzales. "Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a Republican, gave a speech saying that data retention by Internet service providers is an ‘issue that must be addressed.' Child pornography investigations have been 'hampered' because data may be routinely deleted, Gonzales warned," reports Declan McCullagh of CNET News.

DeGette’s "proposal says that any Internet service that ‘enables users to access content' must permanently retain records that would permit police to identify each user. The records could not be discarded until at least one year after the user's account was closed.... An expansive reading of DeGette's measure would require every Web site to retain those records."

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