The Net at Risk

[Guest guest]

The Net at Risk

 

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/net/index.html

 

Check out the live discussion online.

Mike McCurry, co-chairman of Hands off the Internet, a coalition of

telecommunication-related businesses, and Ben Scott, policy director of the

nonpartisan public interest organization Free Press, which advocates in favor of

net neutrality, and representative of SaveTheInternet.com, will respond to the

program, each other, and to viewers' comments. Citizens Class on The Net at

Risk. The future of the Internet is up for grabs. Last year, the Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) effectively eliminated net neutrality rules,

which ensured that every content creator on the Internet-from big-time media

concerns to backroom bloggers-had equal opportunity to make their voice heard.

Now, large and powerful corporations are lobbying Washington to turn the World

Wide Web into what critics call a " toll road, " threatening the equitability that

has come to define global democracy's newest forum. Yet the public knows little

about what's happening behind closed doors on Capitol

Hill. Some activists describe the ongoing debate this way: A small number of

mega-media giants owns much of the content and controls the delivery of content

on radio and television and in the press; if we let them take control of the

Internet as well, immune from government regulation, who will pay the price?

Their opponents say that the best way to encourage Internet innovation and

technological advances is to let the market-not the federal government-determine

the shape of the system. " The genius of the Internet was that it made the

First Amendment a living document again for millions of Americans, " says Robert

McChesney, a media scholar and activist and co-author of OUR MEDIA, NOT THEIRS.

" The decisions that we're going be making ... are probably going to set our

entire communication system, and, really, our entire society, on a course that

it won't be able to change for generations. " With the MOYERS ON AMERICA

series, we inaugurate Citizens Class, an extensive,

interactive curriculum designed to encourage and facilitate public discourse on

the issues raised in the series. The workshop features multimedia discussions,

reference materials on the key perspectives presented in the program, and

questions for further reflection-all designed to stimulate deep and thoughtful

community dialogue. Interested? Check it out. In search of specific information?

Just browsing? Select topics below to explore a range of issues, from the new

digital divide, voices from the debate over net neutrality, to ways to find out

who owns your local media.

The New Digital Divide

Net Neutrality

Community Connections

Big, Bigger, Biggest Media

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http://www.news. com/

FBI director wants ISPs to track users

By Declan McCullagh

http://news. com.com/FBI+ director+ wants+ISPs+ to+track+ users/2100-

7348_3-6126877. html

 

Story last modified Wed Oct 18 06:41:42 PDT 2006

 

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday called on Internet service providers to

record their customers' online activities, a move that anticipates a fierce

debate over privacy and law enforcement in Washington next year.

" Terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet,

as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms, " Mueller said in a speech at

the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Boston.

 

 

" All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet

service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help us

identify these offenders and protect future victims, " Mueller said. " We must

find a balance between the legitimate need for privacy and law enforcement' s

clear need for access. "

The speech to the law enforcement group, which approved a resolution on the

topic earlier in the day, echoes other calls from Bush administration officials

to force private firms to record information about customers. Attorney General

Alberto Gonzales, for instance, told Congress last month that " this is a

national problem that requires federal legislation. "

Justice Department officials admit privately that data retention legislation

is controversial enough that there wasn't time to ease it through the U.S.

Congress before politicians left to campaign for re-election. Instead, the idea

is expected to surface in early 2007, and one Democratic politician has already

promised legislation.

Law enforcement groups claim that by the time they contact Internet service

providers, customers' records may have been deleted in the routine course of

business. Industry representatives, however, say that if police respond to tips

promptly instead of dawdling, it would be difficult to imagine any investigation

that would be imperiled.

It's not clear exactly what a data retention law would require. One proposal

would go beyond Internet providers and require registrars , the companies that

sell domain names, to maintain records too. And during private meetings with

industry officials, FBI and Justice Department representatives have cited the

desirability of also forcing search engines to keep logs--a proposal that could

gain additional law enforcement support after AOL showed how useful such records

could be in investigations.

A representative of the International Association of Chiefs of Police said he

was not able to provide a copy of the resolution.

Preservation vs. retention

At the moment, Internet service providers typically discard any log file that's

no longer required for business reasons such as network monitoring, fraud

prevention or billing disputes. Companies do, however, alter that general rule

when contacted by police performing an investigation- -a practice called data

preservation.

A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records

Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any

" record " in their possession for 90 days " upon the request of a governmental

entity. "

Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity, ISPs tend to

allocate them to customers from a pool based on whether a computer is in use at

the time. (Two standard techniques used are the Dynamic Host Configuration

Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet.)

In addition, Internet providers are required by another federal law to report

child pornography sightings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited

Children, which is in turn charged with forwarding that report to the

appropriate police agency.

 

 

 

When adopting its data retention rules, the European Parliament approved

U.K.-backed requirements saying that communications providers in its 25 member

countries--several of which had enacted their own data retention laws

already--must retain customer data for a minimum of six months and a maximum of

two years.

The Europe-wide requirement applies to a wide variety of " traffic " and

" location " data, including: the identities of the customers' correspondents; the

date, time and duration of phone calls, VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol)

calls or e-mail messages; and the location of the device used for the

communications. But the " content " of the communications is not supposed to be

retained. The rules are expected to take effect in 2008.

CNET News.com's Anne Broache contributed to this report.

 

 

 

 

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