As we noted earlier this week, Senator Lamar Smith not only drafted SOPA, but he also is pushing a law that would require that ISPs track the personal online behavior of users for up to 18 months. Smith's pushing the law under the pretense of waging a tougher war against child porn, when in reality it's simply yet another in a long line of expansions of domestic surveillance capabilities. The push was a priority for the Bush/Gonzales Justice Department, and is also now being championed by the Obama Administration Justice Department.
User uid://1122567 writes in to note that Hawaii is getting a running start toward the mandatory ISP tracking age. Hawaii's HN 2288 requires that "Internet destination history information" and "subscriber's information" such as name and address must be saved for two years by ISPs. Bill sponsor Democratic Rep. John Mizuno of Oahu isn't saying who pushed him to draft the bill (read: entertainment industry, intelligence/law enforcement), but he apparently didn't see fit to ensure that the bill include any privacy protections for consumer data whatsoever:
Mizuno's proposal currently specifies no privacy protections, such as placing restrictions on what Internet providers can do with this information (like selling user profiles to advertisers) or requiring that police obtain a court order before perusing the virtual dossiers of Hawaiian citizens. Also absent are security requirements such as the use of encryption. Because the wording is so broad and applies to any company that "provides access to the Internet," Mizuno's legislation could sweep in far more than AT&T, Verizon, and Hawaii's local Internet providers. It could also impose sweeping new requirements on coffee shops, bookstores, and hotels frequented by the over 6 million tourists who visit the islands each year.
As we, and at least one ISP CEO have pointed out, the biggest problem with these laws is they're creating a treasure trove of personal data that hackers will most certainly lust after.read comment(s)