Can you hear me now?

It appears that Colorado Represenative Diana DeGette is proposing a bill that will require all ISP's to keep a log of customer data permanently, until at least one year after they have cancelled their account. In the proposal (pdf) it states that this will apply to any ISP which "enables users to access content", which I cannot think of any ISP which does not do this. It will require them to "...retain records to permit the identification of subscribers to such services for appropriate law enforcement purposes." Now this is a very vague definition. Will it require them just to keep subscription information such as name and address, or much more detailed information such as a record of what their IP address was and at which time, or even more detailed connection information? A spokesperson for DeGette said "We're still addressing some of the issues, and we will have those issues or answers before we introduce this as either an amendment or a bill. " I would suspect that when you propose a bill or an amendment you might have a good idea of what technical limitation you are up against, but it seems that DeGette doesn't. If an expansive reading of her proposal were taken, then a whole lot of data is going to be generated. Many people and especially businesses will stay with the same ISP for many years. With all this this data being generated, that is going to cost a lot for the ISP to store permanently, and the cost will be pushed onto the consumer.

Now of course this bill isn't being introduced standing alone. It is being toted as a means to curb child pornography in the U.S. (another post in which I discuss privacy issues relating to child pornography laws is located here). This in addition to the recent announcement that the lawsuit against the NSA regarding illegal wiretapping was going to be dropped due to the States Secret Privilege.

In other, non-political news I have finally managed to hurt myself on my bicycle. It's a bit funny because I also happen to have a video of it. In retrospect, any jump big enough that it justifies taking a video recording of, is probably not a good idea. I have also embedded the video into this webpage below.