Proxy Glider

Senator Lamar Smith is at it again! First it was SOPA. Then it was PIPA. Now it’s “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011” (PCIPA, anyone?). It’s H.R. 1981 and it is poised to have even more dire consequences than SOPA or PIPA ever had the potential to have!

At issue is how to catch child pornographers. It’s too hard now, say the bill’s backers, and I can sympathize. It’s their solution that appalls me: under language approved 19 to 10 by a House committee, the firm that sells you Internet access would be required to track all of your Internet activity and save it for 18 months, along with your name, the address where you live, your bank account numbers, your credit card numbers, and IP addresses you’ve been assigned.

Tracking the private daily behavior of everyone in order to help catch a small number of child criminals is itself the noxious practice of police states. Said an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “The data retention mandate in this bill would treat every Internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American.” Even more troubling is what the government would need to do in order to access this trove of private information: ask for it.

I kid you not — that’s it. All someone has to do is ask, and they can get all your credit card numbers, your bank account numbers, your address, and your name!! Does this sound like the perfect setup for identity theft here?

As written, The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 doesn’t require that someone be under investigation on child pornography charges in order for police to access their Internet history — being suspected of any crime is enough. (It may even be made available in civil matters like divorce trials or child custody battles.) Nor do police need probable cause to search this information.

Don’t worry though, there’s an additional set of lines that should placate you because it’s so very kind of them to think that you might not like being spied on 24/7:

(1) to encourage electronic communication service providers to give prompt notice to their customers in the event of a breach of the data retained pursuant to section 2703(h) of title 18 of the United States Code, in order that those effected can take the necessary steps to protect themselves from potential misuse of private information; and

(2) that records retained pursuant to section 2703(h) of title 18, United States Code, should be stored securely to protect customer privacy and prevent against breaches of the records.

So don’t worry, your information will be “stored securely” so no one else can access it! But if they do access it, your ISP will give you “prompt notice” so you can change all your credit card numbers, change banks, hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband.

I can’t believe that could be another law even worse than SOPA/PIPA, but leave it to Lamar Smith to write one!