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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.
And I suppose we better add terrorism and any thing else that might get public backing to scare folks into allowing legislation that will allow the goverment to spy on tens of millions of folks without anyone making sure this will not be abused by corrupt goverment officials, nice way to become a facist state.
In a radical departure from earlier statements, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said that requiring Internet service providers to save records of their customers' online activities is necessary in the fight against terrorism, CNET News.com has learned. Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller privately met with representatives of AOL, Comcast, Google, Microsoft and Verizon last week and said that Internet providers--and perhaps search engines--must retain data for two years to aid in anti-terrorism prosecutions, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity on Tuesday. "We want this for terrorism," Gonzales said, according to one person familiar with the discussion. Gonzales' earlier position had only emphasized how mandatory data retention would help thwart child exploitation
A meeting at the U.S. Justice Department on Friday to discuss forcing Internet providers to record Americans' online activities ended without reaching an agreement, according to multiple participants. They have to make sure they do this right, and it doesn't look like they're going about this the right way," said Dave McClure, president of the U.S. Internet Industry Association, which represents small to midsize companies. McClure, who could not attend Friday's meeting because he was traveling, said: "You have to figure out what information you want, specifically, how to format it so it's useful, how to pay for it, and how to get it past all the privacy people in Congress. I have difficulty understanding why they're flailing about with all these meetings rather than going through that procedure."
