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Friday, June 02, 2006

First they came for the overseas phone records....
Posted by Jill | 10:47 AM
...and I said nothing, because I am not overseas. Then they came for the phone records of everyone who CALLS overseas, and I said nothing, because I don't make calls overseas. Then they came for the search records of users of search engines, and I said nothing because I don't search for porn.

Well, actually, I said a lot, but Martin Niemoller is being paraphrased more and more every day.

Now they're coming for ALL of your internet activity, so you'd better speak the hell up now:

The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales held a meeting in Washington last Friday where they offered a general proposal on record-keeping to a group of senior executives from Internet companies, said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the department. The meeting included representatives from America Online, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Comcast.

The attorney general has appointed a task force of department officials to explore the issue, and that group is holding another meeting with a broader group of Internet executives today, Mr. Roehrkasse said. The department also met yesterday with a group of privacy experts.

The Justice Department is not asking the Internet companies to give it data about users, but rather to retain information that could be subpoenaed through existing laws and procedures, Mr. Roehrkasse said.

While initial proposals were vague, executives from companies that attended the meeting said they gathered that the department was interested in records that would allow them to identify which individuals visited certain Web sites and possibly conducted searches using certain terms.

It also wants the Internet companies to retain records about whom their users exchange e-mail with, but not the contents of e-mail messages, the executives said. The executives spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they did not want to offend the Justice Department.


...which means that when the government decides that you are an enemy of the state because you don't support the Bush Administration's eventual war in Iran and everywhere else in the world, they can use your internet searching to nail you.

If you think this is still about preventing terrorism, guess again. All this talk of freedom abroad, and the United States is turning into Stalinist Russia -- and all this without a shot being fired, and no one gives a shit, as long as it doesn't interfere with the latest about Natalee Holloway, or the model who was eaten by an alligator in Florida, or the latest blond woman to be murdered with her own bikini top, or the latest speculation about the Clintons' marriage, or the first photos of Angelina Jolie's baby, or.........
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