Well, it took a few years, but it finally happened. A data retention bill was introduced today, courtesy of the those freedom-loving House Republicans and their "law and order agenda." But it's actually a Democrat (Rep. Diana DeGette) who's the most enthusiastic proponent of this scheme, so you can bet that whatever happens will be bipartisan in the end. Oh, and the bill also includes mandatory Web labeling. I've placed the documents here: http://politechbot.com/docs/smith.data.retention.labeling.draft.020607.pdf http://politechbot.com/docs/smith.gop.law.and.order.agenda.020607.doc http://politechbot.com/docs/smith.republican.agenda.package.020607.doc And my article is here: http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6156948.html Excerpt: Details about data retention requirements would be left to Gonzales. At a minimum, the bill says, the regulations must require storing records "such as the name and address of the subscriber or registered user to whom an Internet Protocol address, user identification or telephone number was assigned, in order to permit compliance with court orders." Because there is no limit on how broad the rules can be, Gonzales would be permitted to force Internet providers to keep logs of Web browsing, instant message exchanges, or e-mail conversations indefinitely. (The bill does not, however, explicitly cover search engines or Web hosting companies, which officials have talked about before as targets of regulation.) Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/2007/01/24/not-just-isps/ -Declan _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]