I’m only just getting to this, but it seems that the Federal Government (or at least some wingnut faction of it) is seeking to pass this atrocious bill forcing all ISPs (that’s internet companies like Comcast, Time Warner, AOL haha good one and whatever the hell it is you guys have everywhere but the Northeast) to keep records of all your internet activity for a period of 12 months.

For what? Child porn. To prosecute, not to view, you goddamn pervert.

Here‘s an EFF primer on the bill and a statement on the bill making it out of committee. The title of this post comes via Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), which I learned of in this post.

Here’s a Reason post on the subject, here’s one from Cato which gives us the alternate title “You Are All Criminals Act”. From another Cato piece:

It’s got everything: porn, children, the Internet. And it’s got everything: financial services providers dragooned into law enforcement, dataretention requirements heaped on Internet service providers, expanded “administrative subpoena” authority. (Administrative subpoenas are an improvisation to accommodate the massive power of the bureaucracy, and they’ve become another end-run around the Fourth Amendment. If it’s “administrative” it must be reasonable, goes the non-thinking…)

This isn’t a bill about child predation. It’s a bald-faced attack on privacy and limited government.

What with all the BART nonsense this past week (but see and but but see) and the news that the NYPD will now be using Twitter and Facebook to monitor crime (giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “the NYPD is now following you”), one begins to wonder how far, not if, we’ve slipped down the rabbit hole.