Just this morning I configured my coworker’s daughter’s laptop to block facebook.com and myspace.com. The private market as already provided the tools to protect one’s children. It is laws like this that perpetuate the view the Federal gov’t nanny state.

Cornyn, you are a good man, but use you position to educate our population. I am sure McAfee, Symantec, et al. would fund a campaign to educate parents how to protect their kids from thee and other sites.

Thank you senator for setting the record straight.

However, if your statement is accurate, the record keeping requirements do no good.

If one were to access the internet through a coffee shop’s wireless access point, the ISP can only save the record of the IP address assigned to the coffee shop’s router. Since all of the IP addresses assigned to the shop’s patrons are issued by their router (not the ISP’s), and are NAT’d behind its single address, the records cannot show who really did what you are looking for. Unless you plan to hold the coffee shop owner vialble for the actions of his customers.

Any that doesn’t even count annonymous proxy web access (see TOR, for example)

Something this simple to defeat just creates a burden without providing any benefit.

Most of the hacking attempts I’ve seen on my servers have been from IP addresses based outside the US (notably, most often from a Mexican ISP that offers proxy access). It’s very easy to configure your browser to use a proxy to route your requests.

My point being, this bill seems to be a little naive about the abilities of many out there on the web who intend ill. Retaining IP addresses is a good start, but it isn’t nearly enough to solve or even hinder the problem’s spread. I’d love to see routing access denied to foreign ISPs that support (or refuse to actively impede) cyberterrorism, but hey, that’s a big political mess.

As the bill is writtem anyone who owns a device that issues IP addresses falls within the scope of the act. You can tell me about your intentions all day long; I don’t really give intentions much weight. What I care about is what the law allows, and how people I don’t trust will decide the law can be used.

This reminds me of congressional efforts to curb illicit methamphetamine production by regulating the provision of over-the-counter cold medicines containing methamphetamine precursors, as if the operators of meth labs are routinely getting their raw materials by buying shelfsful of Sudafed from the local Walgreens such that we need to restrict everybody’s access to the stuff.

I carry no brief for pederasts, Senator. But this legislation is a pantload.

(1) The recordkeeping mandate is way beyond what’s currently required of ISPs. Retaining those records isn’t a cost-free exercise — data retention costs money — and those costs are going to be passed right back to the consumer. In the midst of a recession.

(2) There’s no evidence that the existing recordkeeping mandates (where an ISP retains subscriber data in response to bona fide law enforcement requests) are inadequate. Merely saying that “is commonplace that by the time law enforcement has discovered the Internet child pornography and made the request to retain records under current law, the ISP has already purged the subscriber records” doesn’t establish the significance of the problem to any level of certainty.

(3) The mandate is ripe for abuse. There’s no guarantee that retained ISP records will be accessed exclusively for bona fide criminal investigations of pederasts and child pornographers, and absent such a guarantee government is simply undeserving of trust in the matter.

(4) From a rebuild-the-GOP-brand perspective, this is absolute poison: it spits directly into the eye of the kind of pro-anonymity civil libertarianism that still enjoys widespread currency among Internet users, particularly younger and more technically-sophisticated individuals that Republicans really cannot afford to be further alienating right now. Those people aren’t laughing with you; they’re laughing at you, and then they’re cutting checks to the EFF, the ACLU, and the DNC.

In short, if you were looking to create legislation that would further the popular impression of Republicans as dismally out-of-touch moral crusaders and paternalist, statist, “Civil liberties? Never heard of ‘em,” voluptuaries of law enforcement, you’d have a hard time coming up with anything better. Everybody wants to protect kids, but dragooning ISPs into the War On Pederasty at the expense of people’s wallets and their privacy isn’t the way to do it.

Senator,

I wouldn’t mind a death penalty for this kind of scum and congratulate any effective means of catching them. While I am skeptical about government intent behind any new law, I pray this is used exactly as you describe it. However, none of this is the reason for my post.

I simply want you to understand that it is up to YOU and our small minority to stop this administration from using this and any other existing laws to take liberty from law abiding citizens. Prevent them from coming up with more insanity and STOP THEM FROM PRINTING MORE MONEY.

We are freaking out.

HELP.

the Declaration of Independence and our slide into socialism before we worry about the internet.

Hell with Obama’s talk we won’t have no internet to worry about.

We won’t have power to run anything much less computers.

How about you Republicans save us from Obama first???

“Temporary” was the word that caught my attention. If three months is temporary, and two years is temporary, why not make the law ten years? Why not twenty? Why not fifty since many child abusers aren’t discovered until much later in life? On a large enough timeline, fifty years is the blink of an eye.

I think first we need to stop letting child abusers go. That’ll keep them from hurting kids. Second, find another way to catch them without suspecting everyone.

I agree with daggit that this is going to be no more helpful.

Finally, with the way the current administration has been in a constant power grab, I think it would be best if all data-storage requirements were eliminated. If the Fairness Doctrine (or diversity and localization) is enforced, will we be arrested for reading RedState as well? Don’t doubt the audacity of this administration.

Now where’s my tinfoil hat?

Not all of us ol farts are computer nerds and there are many of us that use a computer. Laws to tracks the hackers seems to me a good idea. We need to stop that scum.

Having recently purchased a wi-fi ready laptop I’ve discovered that in any populated area there many unsecured home wireless networks that anyone could tap into without the owner’s knowledge. Accordingly many folks ignorant of how to secure their home network could be charged with child pornography when in fact it was a neighbor or someone parked out in the street with a laptop who is actually guilty of the crime. Even if the unaware party could prove their innocence there would always be the stigma attached to being arrested for child pornography….

I agree with you completely, and applaud your efforts and that of your colleague. There is no more egregious crime then the crime committed against children. Even the animals of the forest treat there children better, and if man intends to remain the dominant species on this planet, then they need to end the exploitation of their children.

May I respectfully suggest that you add to this bill/law, that provider’s of home networking solutions that deploy a wireless router, at least be required to offer the customer to activate the encryption on the router, or the access control list; it should be noted that the manufacturer of the device does enable these security features on the routers by default. By doing this, it will protect the consumer from a “war driving” crime which involves a perpetrator from using the wireless connection for unlawful means that can only be tracked back to the IP address used by the consumer leaving them to hold the bag.

Thank you for your time and please keep fighting to have this law passed.

Meyagii