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Following the massive world-wide protests over the Internet in January, the infamous SOPA and PIPA are mostly dead with the author Lamar Smith saying he won't take the bill up in committee until a "wider agreement on a solution" is reached.
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While people have been celebrating the victory over SOPA and PIPA, here's what has managed to slip by relatively unobserved, until now.
A bill, titled H.R. 1981, "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011," is being sponsored by Lamar Smith and is considered to be a wide-ranging Internet surveillance bill with many other domineering attempts by the government to invade privacy and control the Internet.
According to David Seaman, a prominent new media advocate, the bill has been named thus "so that politicians in the House and Senate are strong-armed into voting for it, even though it contains utterly insane 1984-style Big Brother surveillance provisions."
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What makes H.R. 1981 such a grave threat to people's online privacy? Below is a scrap from section 4, regarding the retention of private records:
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"A commercial provider of an electronic communication service shall retain for a period of at least one year a log of the temporarily assigned network addresses the provider assigns to a subscriber to or customer of such service that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information under subsection (c)(2) of this section."
The Library of Congress Web site summarizes it like this:
"Requires a provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service to retain for at least 18 months the temporarily assigned network addresses the service assigns to each account unless that address is transmitted by radio communication. Bars any cause of action against a provider for retaining records as required. Makes a good faith reliance on the requirement to retain records a complete defense to a civil action. Expresses the sense of Congress that such records should be stored securely to protect customer privacy and prevent breaches of the records."
A report in Venture Beat said H.R. 1981 would "alter U.S. code Chapter 18 section 2703 'Required Disclosure of Customer Communications or Records' so that all Internet service providers would need to store your IP address for at least 12 months, along with any highly sensitive personal information such as credit card data."
All these imply that each and every online movement of Internet users will be tracked, stored and even be made accessible not necessarily with any real cause.
Not only law enforcement but also civil litigants in private lawsuits, companies trying to expose and hit back on an anonymous critic and even "a divorce lawyer looking for dirty laundry" can easily avail data, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"These databases would also be a new and valuable target for black hat hackers, be they criminals trying to steal identities or foreign governments trying to unmask anonymous dissidents," EFF added.
C-30, It's Canadian Counterpart
The bill, submitted last year, closely resembles the Canadian bill named "C-30" that also made headlines recently.
