f l u e n c y f u m b l e

If you, like I, have been keeping mental tabs on the number of potential federal infringements on the spirit of American civil liberty made in the name of “the children” or “terror” in recent years, here’s another to add to your stockpile:

U.S. Atty. General Alberto Gonzales testified to a Senate panel this week urging ISPs to retain information on their customers’ surfing habits:

“This is a problem that requires federal legislation,” Gonzales told the Senate Banking Committee. “We need information. Information helps us makes cases.”

He called the government’s lack of access to customer data the biggest obstacle to deterring child porn.

I promise, the quote is real. Though I probably couldn’t have written something more ridiculous myself. Seattlepi reports that the FBI said during the meetings that such records would help their terrorism investigations.

“We have to find a way for Internet service providers to retain information for a period of time so we can go back with a legal process to get them,” Gonzales said.

As much as I admire Gonzales’ determination to find legal means of sponging customer data (what?), such legislation will be of direct cost to consumers, whose “Internet privacy” was dicey to begin with, and certainly to the 4th Amendment concepts discussed recently in Courseweb.

And what good will come of knowing who’s been where? Usually, in these arguments for restricting liberty to increase protection, some point is made about cost and benefit, why giving up privacy is worth the intended goal. Well, the gain here seems to be pinpointing where Web browsers have been. … So law enforcement officials will be able to subpoena Internet histories and determine which computers have browsed what.

Right, because THAT would be an insurmountable item of prosecutorial evidence against alleged child pornographers and terrorists.

Actually, I feel sorry for the ISP that has to pull up my record. Not only is it probably 15,000 pages long, but anything of interest would be buried in millions of visits to social networking sites.

Even so, if by some typo misstep or spate of curiosity I had ended up at some site deemed incriminating by officials

… so what?

Last I checked, reading wasn’t a federal offense.
(Thought crime, thought crime!)

Civil liberties watchdog groups are up in arms over Gonzales’ recommendation, but providers like Verizon, Time Warner AOL and Pittsburgh hometown favorite Comcast seem to be fairly receptive. Listening, at least.

There go my visits to InflammatoryKoranScripture.com.