#hr 1981

[techfreedom]

Free Market Coalition Opposes Digital Dragnet

This morning, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary will mark up H.R. 1981, a bill that would impose a broad data retention mandate on all U.S. commercial Internet service providers.

Today, a coalition of free market public interest groups submitted a letter to the committee voicing serious concerns regarding H.R. 1981. The coalition, which includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute, TechFreedom, and Americans for Tax Reform’s DigitalLiberty.net, warned that a broad data retention mandate would burden small businesses, hinder innovation, undermine cybersecurity, endanger free speech, harm Americans’ privacy and set a dangerous international precedent—all without appreciably advancing law enforcement objectives or benefiting criminal investigations.

H.R. 1981 follows in the footsteps of repressive governments such as China, which recently enacted a similar retention mandate covering wireless Internet providers to facilitate its suppression of dissidents. America should take the moral high ground: citizens are innocent until proven guilty. A blanket mandate requiring providers to retain network address information pertaining to all citizens—the vast majority of whom have never been charged with a criminal offense—amounts to a ‘digital dragnet’ of staggering proportions.

An extensive body of empirical evidence, including the experiences of other nations in which similar laws have been enacted, strongly suggests that H.R. 1981 is not likely to result in any appreciable decrease in crimes committed against children. Congress is rightly concerned about the horrific crime of child exploitation, but the proper response to such concerns is a narrowly tailored approach that preserves Internet freedom and minimizes burdens on the private sector while enabling law enforcement to bring child predators to justice.

[colocationamerica-blog]

SOPA Bill Part II H.R. 1981 protects colocation providers, adults, and children.

[thepeoplesquill-blog]

SOPA 2.0 - "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011"

While the Internet has made some great strides in recent months regarding speaking out against unfair legislation upon the Internet, it cannot let its guard down. Recently, Representative Lamar Smith, the author of SOPA, has initiated another piece of legislature that is along the very same lines of SOPA. He has named it the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011," or PCFIP, H.R. 1981. On the surface, the bill seems as if it intends to prevent the abuse of minors through child pornography, intending for stricter implications upon those who upload and monetarily support child pornography. Admirable as this may seem, the method of application is this: your ISP, or Internet service provider, is required by law to maintain logs of your IP address and your activity on the Internet in order to monitor your usage of data for 18 months. You can read the text, abstract, and all of the information related to this bill on the Library of Congress's webpage for it at this link: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.01981: Here's the kicker, though: we already have laws in place that place penalties upon people who do such terrible things to children, which get even worse if you upload it to the Internet. Vigilant citizens report such crimes to the police every day. Server administrators report these crimes to the ISP of the individual who uploads them. Perpetrators are apprehended by the FBI and are subsequently hit with gigantic fines and then jailed. Both local and federal law enforcement actively seek providers and consumers of child pornography. So if we already have methods of finding and punishing child pornographers, what is the true purpose of this bill? Let's not wait until it's too late to find out. Another excellent article on the subject, along with methods of protecting yourself: http://lifehacker.com/5825746/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-internet-snooping-bill-and-what-you-can-do-about-it Stay educated, stay strong. - Ninten

[djcoldduck]

Prince - Electric Chair (SNL 1989) (by tanasio14)

There is also a remix by William Orbit (producer of Madonna's Ray Of Light, among other things) which is the quintessence of early '90s house.

For anyone concerned about SOPA or HR1981, this is for you. 

[lilysrabess]

Another internet snooping bill HR 1981 and guess what? The man Lamar Smith who created SOPA came up with this one too! It's already passed through the committee as well.

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/snooping/?akid=1202.1845371.xYX-hP&rd=1&t=5

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/snooping/?akid=1202.1845371.xYX-hP&rd=1&t=5

[out-kasted]

"A direct assault on Internet users" is what the ACLU is calling it.  A U.S. House committee has already approved HR 1981, a broad new Internet snooping bill.

And get this -- it's also authored by SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith. 

They want to force Internet service providers to keep track of and retain their customers' information -- including your name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses.

The Internet blew away the insiders with our work against SOPA.  Let's do it again this time:

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/snooping/?akid=1192.1584796.VoHIWw&rd=1&t=2

Please click the link to urge your lawmakers to oppose the snooping bill -- it's already passed through committee. 

The ACLU, EFF, Demand Progress, and 25 other civil liberties and privacy groups have expressed our opposition to this legislation.  Will you join us, by emailing your lawmakers today?  Just use the form at right. ISPs would collect and retain your data whether or not you're accused of a crime.  Supporters shamelessly dubbed it the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act," but our staunchest allies in Congress are calling it what it is: an all-encompassing Internet snooping bill.   Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California -- a SOPA hero who also led Democratic opposition to this bill -- said, "It represents a data bank of every digital act by every American [that would] let us find out where every single American visited Web sites."

Thanks,

Demand Progress

PS: Let's stop this one in its tracks, just as we did with SOPA. 

[shoopzig]

"A direct assault on Internet users" is what the ACLU is calling it.  A U.S. House committee has already approved HR 1981, a broad new Internet snooping bill. 

They want to force Internet service providers to keep track of and retain their customers' information -- including your name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses.

And get this: It's authored by lead SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith.

The ACLU, EFF, Demand Progress, and 25 other civil liberties and privacy groups have expressed our opposition to this legislation.  Will you join us, by emailing your lawmakers today?  Just use the form at right. ISPs would collect and retain your data whether or not you're accused of a crime.  Supporters shamelessly dubbed it the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act," but our staunchest allies in Congress are calling it what it is: an all-encompassing Internet snooping bill.  Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who led Democratic opposition to the bill said, "It represents a data bank of every digital act by every American [that would] let us find out where every single American visited Web sites."

-DemandProcess.org