finethen wrote:

The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.

I'm not sure why this would be so useful for them. It sounds like an expensive and complicated way to gather information regarding only a small percentage of crimes. Anyone care to explain?

This is the noxious fog of your worst orwellian nightmares being slowly, ever so slowly, pumped into the country in hopes you won't notice the gradual change in air quality.

In general, this information isn't expensive to retain. Its already collected by ISPs. The computers they have automatically log this information for troubleshooting, security, and billing purposes. Its just that the ISPs usually throw that information away when they don't need it anymore. The Government is asking them to keep it for a long time. (Its worth noting that the reason Google is viewed with suspicion by privacy advocates is because they already retain all of this sort of data forever.)

All kinds of information is involved. ISPs can see who you've emailed, who has emailed you, what websites you've visited or other computers you've accessed, what IP address you've been using, and what times you were online. All of this is kept automatically. Websites (like this one) know which pages have been viewed from particular IP addresses at particular times. The feds have talked about forcing us to retain data too. If you combined the information from a website with the information from the ISP's logs, you could determine who viewed particular pages on a website or who wrote particular posts.

Due to the (tortured, IMHO) reasoning of Smith V. Maryland this kind of information has no Fourth Amendment protection, although some limited statutory protection exists.

The given example of kiddy porn is simply raised here because its one of those issues wherein almost no one is willing to oppose the government lest they be accused of defending kiddy porn. Its a straw man that is used to prevent debate. This kind of information can come in handy in all kinds of civil and criminal cases. The government might want to know who was using an IP address at a particular time if a computer breakin occured from there, RICO or anti-terror prosecutors might want to know who you've been emailing, your spouse might also want to know that in the event you are getting divorced, even a murder trial might be impacted by evidence that you were online during a particular time period. In the past information about internet search terms has been used to butress a case against an accused murderer.

Basically, these computer logs tell me a heck of a lot about what you think about, who you interact with, and what your lifestyle is like. So much information is there that I don't really need the content of your emails if I want to build a case against you, and with no messy Fourth Amendment to worry about, we don't have to trifle with judicial oversight!

Ever do something illegal with your computer? Ever use the Internet for any purpose that you wouldn't want other people to know about? The Internet is Forever.

RE: U.S. Wants Companies to Keep Web Usage Records - New York Times