A News.com article says U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller are trying to persuade the telecommunications companies to store data about their subscribers websurfing habits. This could include emails, the websites people visit, instant messages, web forum posts, etc.
In a private meeting with industry representatives, Gonzales, Mueller and other senior members of the Justice Department said Internet service providers should retain subscriber information and network data for two years, according to two sources familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The closed-door meeting at the Justice Department, which Gonzales had requested, according to the sources, comes as the idea of legally mandated data retention has become popular on Capitol Hill and inside the Bush administration. Supporters of the idea say it will help prosecutions of child pornography because in many cases, logs are deleted during the routine course of business.
Privacy activists are very concerned about the development and worry it could be used broadly.
Privacy advocates have been alarmed by the idea of legally mandated data retention, saying that, while child exploitation may be the justification today, those records would be available in all kinds of criminal and civil suits--including terrorism, tax evasion, drug, and even divorce cases.
It was not immediately clear what Gonzales and Mueller meant by suggesting that network data be retained. One possibility is requiring Internet providers to record the Internet addresses their customers are temporarily assigned. A more extensive mandate would require companies to keep track of e-mail messages sent, Web pages visited and perhaps even instant-messaging correspondents.
The News.com article says the current law is a 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act. The law required ISPs to "retain any 'record' in their possession for 90 days 'upon the request of a governmental entity.'" 90 days seems a lot more reasonable than two years. In addition to the privacy concerns, requiring ISPs to store two years of all of their customers internet activity would also be a considerable burden to put on the ISPs.
