Your right to privacy? Fail.
 

During my morning news run I was hit with the following:

1. The fed are now looking to tax drivers by the mile. Which means they get to put a little black box transceiver in your car.

They say they need this because cars are more fuel efficient and they are losing revenue on the gas tax. Well then just raise the gas tax. That will encourage the adoption of more fuel efficient vehicles better than a flat rate per mile.

2. A bill that will require YOU (yes you) to keep a two year log of all your Internet usage.

This is what you see in Police States. Laws that are overly burdensome and thus generally ignored but it gives authorities something to hang on you anytime they want.


3. Chicago mayor vows to "Put a surveillance camera on every corner".

Does anyone believe this will only be used for good? In Illinois?

I've heard about the tax by the mile plan.

Oregon started messing with this idea in 2001 and ran a pilot program in 06 and 07 - here is a run down of that test. And yeah....I hate it, too. Driving is like smoking - taxing a behavior will slow down that behavior, and if the taxes are high enough, the behavior eventually will stop all together. Then the government complains that they don't get the money they used to get from the behavior they taxed out of existance and begin taxing other behaviors. SUCKS.

Two year log of internet usage? Commie pigs. Next the House will want to limit free speech on radio....oh, wait.....

Surveillance cameras on every corner, though, doesn't bother me. One has no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place.

Really? So it would be OK with you if the local police set an officer with a video camera to follow you around all day? Record everywhere you drive, where you stop and for how long, who you talked with, etc.... That's all good for you?

Texas Reb. crying "won't someone think of the children"... he needs to be slapped and then some.

Well, then we come to harrassment and equal protection under the law. What you describe is harrassment and targeted surveillance. The cameras on every corner, at least to me, is not the same thing. That's a broad and general thing that affects everyone in the same way. While I don't necessarily like it, I don't think there is any constitutional issue with it.

To me the difference is that with complete video coverage, they can individually target you for surveillance anytime they want without you ever knowing, without cause, without a warrant of any kind.

I doubt anyone is that interested in what I do.

This doesn't really bother me as a broad concept. But right now it is just people talking about the idea, I'd have to see how it is going to be implemented if ever passed. And I'm not sure why it would involve putting a little black transceiver in your. All cars manufactured already are required by law to include a little device that tracks how many miles you have driven and has it be illegal to tamper with that device.

True. But building and maintaining the highway system does not get any cheaper just because the vehicles driving on them use less gas.

I agree this would be a horrible law if implemented down to the home/non-commercial network level. Iffier call at the commercial network provider level.

So I oppose it, but I am not too worked up about it yet. Stupid laws get submitted in congress all of the time. If it survives committee then I'll start to get more aggravated.

I'd argue that it is not a great use of money since early returns indicate such efforts have little impact on crime or crime solving but I don't have any issue with it on privacy grounds. We are, de facto, approaching this point anyway. If I walk from one end of Downtown San Francisco to the other I'm probably on 50+ camera feeds and most of them won't even request a warrant or subpoena if the police ask to look at them.

This is already allowed. But yes, I'd be annoyed. Because they're wasting their time (and therefore my money).

Again, this is already generally allowed. So long as they aren't intruding into visually blocked private spaces (such as inside private residences) or listening in on certain forms of communication I'm not aware that a warrant or even cause is required to perform surveillance on people in public places.

I'm sure it will all slowly create a pain-in-the-ass level of new evidentiary rules, however, for what is admissable and when they can be used. So it will be a great law review jobs program.

It sounds to me like Big Brother is wanting to put his finger in any pie he can find and we will be the losers!

One may not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place but one does have the right not to be detained without reasonable suspicion. I think if the issue were presented to it, even the current Supreme Court would issue a common sense opinion that says that the historical understanding of the Bill of Rights was that we get to go about our business free from police intrusion absent some cause. I think the court would hold that long term random surveillance by human police officers is an unconstitutional detention.

Technological random surveillance is another matter, and it's in this area that we'll be hoist by our own petard. The cops don't have to do flyovers to see if you're growing pot plants in your backyard. They can practically just go on Google Earth. The more technologically connected we become by clever devices, the easier it will be for the court to say that there's no privacy being intruded on.

This is what they're throwing out there to catch our attention... my question is, what are they hoping will fly under the radar while we're reacting to this crap?

From my experience, crap like this is almost continuously 'out there'

Yeah now, that's what I'm talking about. This Obama thing might just work out....

Now if someone would email his blackberry about this two year retention thing. Or at least point out that as written it would encompass all the white house computers.

You may have been kidding, but I feel the need to point out that all white house doings on computers are a part of official white house history and must be saved.

I was kidding but now that you bring it up, I do know that all "Communications" are supposed to be saved. I wonder if that covers web surfing or not?

On a totally random aside with no relation to earlier posts in this thread, I wonder how hard it would be to come up with a bit of "security software" for my router that would continuously assign random IP address to all the PC's NAT'ed behind the firewall.

Meanwhile, at the morning briefing . . .

Q. Yes, Scott, can you tell us which porn sites the President will be surfing today?

A. Helen, that's classified, but let's just say that the President can see Russia from his house.

I guess the Prez needs to stick to low-tech porn - like interns.

OMG, could you imagine the prez visiting porn sites and picking up a virus? Talk about a security breach!

I think that may happen with the low tech porn option too - visiting the low tech porn site and picking up a virus.

Ugh. They even used the "It's for the children" battle cry.

Nothing makes me want to poke someone in the eye more than when they want to push some retarded belief on me with the "save the children" defense. Idiots...

Why would you need to randomize the IPs behind your firewall? Anybody outside your firewall would just see the IP address of the router, not the addresses of each individual computer on the network.

There's DHCP that most routers have built in that can be used to automatically assign an IP address. You can set the expiration period to anything you want, at which time it will assign a new IP. Unfortunately it will tend to assign the same IP address over and over again unless it gets snatched up by another computer between release and renew.

If it's anonymity you want then you need to use proxies to mask your router's IP address. TOR is a pretty simple solution.

Because the way this new law is written ANYONE running a nat'ed router (which is just about everyone) would be required to keep a log file of what internal IP address was used with what PC. If the router keeps assigning new internal IP's moment to moment.....

The thing I'd really like to know is why the same statutes that limit the ability of law enforcement to tap your phone don't apply here too. If they can't listen in to my phone without a warrant, why do these fascists think that it's okay to track my internet activity without one?

Then it's going to be logging which PC got that IP with each change too. It won't mask behavior. It will just make the logs all that much bigger. It would be easier to just to turn off the log.

I can't see how the government is going to force me to run software that I don't want to run on computers that I own.

If you read the bill they do need a warrant to track your internet activity (though they aren't really tracking that, the requirement is that a provider of IP addresses keep records of who was in possession of that IP address; nothing about what you're doing with it; though if you have records of that as well they can be required as well).

It would require that you keep the records but the relevant section of statute (Title 18, Section 2703) still requires a warrant (if the possessor of said information isn't willing to hand it over) or subpoena for the government to get the information.

That's the point. Assuming the law passes and you don't then they can charge you with obstruction or something similar.

The text of the house bill currently says:

It's way to vague.

What is "All Records"? Would a MAC address work?
Does this in effect outlaw free WiFi?
Does "All Records" mean traffic logs or not?
You can read it several diffrent ways.

Assuming you don't buy the "Save The Children" line, who stands to benefit from this? The RIAA and MPAA who have in the past been roadblocked in some cases by not being able to identify users behind a Nat'ed router.

They can have my router when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

Incidentally, I am currently logging all my network traffic. It logs which external IP address is connecting with which internal IP address and how much data is being transferred. I do this so I can "spy" on my own network. (Mainly to track bandwidth use and raise redflags for anything weird or suspicious...and because I can and I was curious. :D )

Where in there does that say anything about the end user being the one required to keep records? Aren't they talking about the ISP's keeping records of who THEIR DHCP servers are assigning addresses to?

Which, in reality, is tracking of internet activity. With the right software, all they need is your IP to track down everything you've done. Everything you do leaves a digital footprint, so it's only a matter of a little effort to track that footprint all over cyberspace. To me, that's the same as using my phone number to tap in and listen to my conversations.

Which they can do if they get a warrant. And for the government to USE the data, they still need a warrant.

Covers (in the opinion of many interested parties not just me) just about everything. If you pay the ISP and CP shares the connection YOU are a provider of electronic communication service.

The text of the current bill adds that paragraph to Title 18 Section 2703 which says that when issued a subpoena or warrant you must be able to divulge the following elements of identity:

name; address;
local and long distance telephone connection records, or records of session times and durations;
length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized;
telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporarily assigned network address; and
means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number)

So, while I certainly agree it would be onerous to extend such requirements down to the private home network level I don't agree it is vague what you are required to keep.

The requirement to provide this information on warrant or subpoena for this exact same class of networks is already in law. All this new addition is specify that these records be kept for 2 years.

So this prompts me to ask, if this new law would apply to my home network then doesn't the existing law already apply to it and is there any case law suggesting that it has been enforced in this way beyond a single advocate in the linked article saying it would?

While you can disagree with the effectiveness in saving the children, since all of the other elements in the bill involve increasing the penalties for internet-based child sexual exploitation I see no reason to assume that the honest intention of the rule is making it easier to track down such people when acts such criminal acts are identified.

But yes, in addition to that, if the records are made to exist they would be of benefit to pursuing information on any crime (and possibly civil lawsuit) that involves internet activity.

Jazzbear

My point wasn't that they couldn't track your internet usage. But rather that they couldn't track it just from the data requirements in this law and that the data requirements in this law do require a warrant (which you suggested it did not). ETA: To be clearer, the government may well believe it can do such without a warrant and there is evidence that has done so but this proposed law is not further evidence of it.



Finally, as I said above, if this law applies to home networks I most certainly would oppose it. But I'll oppose it for what it really does not what jumped to conclusions say it does. And I'll wait until it gets out of committee before even worrying that much about it since stupid bills are submitted all the time just to die.

It was on the plan to up California's gas tax by $0.12 per gallon as part of the way to cover the $41 billion deficit. Thankfully that was killed.

We did however get a 1% sales tax increase. Which means 9.25% in LA County and 8.75% in Orange County (those are the only two I know off the top of my head).