According to Declan McCullough, the Justice Department is expanding its data retention push to include image and video-sharing sites:
The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned.
That proposal surfaced Wednesday in a private meeting during which U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, tried to convince industry representatives such as AOL and Comcast that data retention would be valuable in investigating terrorism, child pornography and other crimes. The discussions were described to News.com by several people who attended the meeting.
As always, this encroachment on your fourth amendment rights is “for the children” a justification that is the last refuge for scoundrels. Missing (as usual) is any actual justification for the push based on the argument presented. Law enforcement already has the right to get a subpoena to force Flickr or YouTube to turn over user information — have there been cases where police did so, only to be told the data had been deleted? Is there any evidence that YouTube and Flickr have been used for illegal activities (copyright infringement notwithstanding)?
Of course not. Because this isn’t about fighting terrorism or stopping child pornography, both offenses that can clearly be addressed via available tools. It’s about compiling databases of information on law-abiding citizens that can be mined by government computers. Its about compiling information, not about investigating ongoing criminal enterprises.
Lest you think any of this is based on principle, check out the rationale for excluding schools and libraries:
Only universities and libraries would be excluded, one participant said. “There’s a PR concern with including the libraries, so we’re not going to include them,” the participant quoted the Justice Department as saying. “We know we’re going to get a pushback, so we’re not going to do that.”
So it’s all about protecting the children, unless it raises a PR concern. Then we’ll just move on to other lower-hanging fruit.
The Bush/Gonzalez administration seems to have a serious surveillance jones, and it would be nice to see some “pushback” from average citizens. Of course, the Clinton administration wasn’t any better (remember the Clipper Chip?), and a Hillary administration would probably be even worse than Bill’s was.
