Feds push for Internet records

Justice Department wants to use Web-surfing date to fight child porno

By John Reinan
Star Tribune

The federal government wants your Internet provider to keep track of every website you visit.

For more than a year, the U.S. Justice Department has been in discussions with Internet companies and privacy rights advocates, trying to come up with a plan that would make it easier for investigators to check records of Web traffic.

The idea is to help law enforcement track down child pornographers. But some see it as another step toward total surveillance of citizens, joining warrantless wiretapping, secret scrutiny of library records and unfettered access to e-mail as another power that could be abused.

"I don't think it's realistic to think that we would create this enormous honeypot of information and then say to the FBI, 'You can only use it for this narrow purpose,' " said Leslie Harris, executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes free speech and privacy in communication.

"We have an environment in which we're collecting more and more information on the personal lives of Americans, and our laws are completely inadequate to protect us."

So far, no concrete proposal has emerged, but U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has made it clear that he'd like to see quick action.

In September testimony before a Senate committee, Gonzales painted a graphic and disturbing picture of child pornography on the Web, which he called an urgent threat to children. The production and consumption of child pornography has exploded as the Internet makes it easier to exchange images, Gonzales said.

But federal agents and prosecutors are hampered in their investigations because Internet companies don't routinely keep records of their traffic, he told the committee.

Gonzales also pushed for Internet records tracking in an April speech at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"Privacy rights must always be accommodated and protected as we conduct our investigations," he said. "[But] the investigation and prosecution of child predators depends critically on the availability of evidence that is often in the hands of Internet service providers.

"This evidence will be available for us to use only if the providers retain the records for a reasonable amount of time," he said. "Unfortunately, the failure of some Internet service providers to keep records has hampered our ability to conduct investigations in this area."

The Wild West of the Web

Internet service providers typically keep records of Web traffic only for short periods, usually 30 to 90 days, as a way to trace technical glitches. Many ISPs, along with privacy advocates, say that it's already easy for government agents to get the information they need to investigate crimes.

The FBI, without a court order, can send a letter to any Internet provider ordering it to maintain records for an investigation, said Kevin Bankston, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that promotes free speech and privacy on the Web.

"There's been no showing that mass surveillance of all Internet users, mandated by the government, is necessary for law enforcement," Bankston said. "If this passes, there would be a chilling effect on free speech if everyone knew that everything they did on the Internet could be tracked back to them."

The government has offered differing rationales for its data-retention plan, said Harris, the privacy advocate.

"I've been in discussions at the Department of Justice where someone would say, 'We want this for child protection. And someone else would say 'National security,' and someone else would say, 'Computer crimes,' " Harris said. "We're operating in the wild, wild West here."

There are questions about what records would be kept, said David McClure, president of the U.S. Internet Industry Association, a Virginia-based group that represents about 800 small and medium-sized ISPs.

Is it a log of every website a user visits? Is it the actual content of e-mails and other Internet communications? Nobody in the government has offered specifics, McClure said.

"When we go to them for specifics, they start shuffling and hemming and hawing, and the issue goes away until the attorney general gives another speech," he said.

'This is all being driven by a political need, not a law enforcement need."

Congress could act soon

Kathleen Blomquist, a Department of Justice spokeswoman, would not comment on specific proposals for Internet records tracking.

"Because Attorney General Gonzales considers the protection of America's children to be a top priority of the Department of Justice, we are continuing to closely study the issue," she said.

Comcast Cable Communications, the Twin Cities' leading Internet service provider, said it does not retain information on the Web-surfing habits of individual customers unless ordered to by a court, a company official testified to Congress in June.

Mary Beth Schubert, a Comcast spokeswoman in St. Paul, said the company wouldn't comment further until a bill is introduced in Congress. That could happen in the upcoming session, where several lawmakers have promised to introduce legislation on data retention.