Senator Lamar Smith HR 1981:

So we have had the SOPA Blackout with Wikipedia and many other staking stance at the bill being pushed through congress, and it now looks like it has been buried for a while, and this is more than likely the case rather than simply buried.

So we can all rest in our liberal, rational little worlds now the thought police have decided to come back another day, but is it all that clear on the horizon of rationalism?

Back up or die:

If you are going to conquer anything worthwhile you need back up plans, so was SOPA just a smoke screen, a SOPA screen if you will?

It appears that a Senator Lamar Smith who was largely responsible for the SOPA bill could well have another bill related to Child Pornography down his pants, this bill will track all your financial dealings online by forcing your ISP (internet service provider) to do the dirty work for the government.

The data collected will include your IP address, and there are rumours that your search history, credit card and other personal information will also be stored conveniently for 18 months, though this seems to be a little scaremongering above and beyond what is perhaps intended with this bill.

The bill is HR 1981:

How ironic that this bill should actually be called HR 1981 being so close to the famous Orwell novel 1984 book of a similar name which talks of “Big Brother” watching over its citizens with rather nasty intent.

This bill is thought to be more detrimental to civil liberties and freedoms on the internet than PIPA or SOPA ever tried to infringe.

Amending several areas of the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.” which changes key areas in Chapter 18 Section 2703 which requires disclosure of customer information or records to include a requirement that your internet service provider provide the following data:

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.

Access to a record or information required to be retained under this subsection may not be compelled by any person or other entity that is not a governmental entity.

It has been noted that the third section below does attempt to look into the additional cost of implementing this bill:

The Attorney General shall make a study to determine the costs associated with compliance by providers with the requirement of paragraph (1). Such study shall include an assessment of all the types of costs, including for hardware, software, and personnel that are involved. Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this paragraph, the Attorney General shall report to Congress the results of that study.

This changes the way that ISP’s are forced to collect Data. Where before they would have had to be given reason via a subpoena to collect personal data and then pass on this data as it was subsequently collected, now ISP’s would have to collect your personal data off the bat, just in case there is a need later, with a back up of 18 months of information on all clients.

This bill has currently gone through committee stage and is now heading for a full on vote.

Should your privacy be opened up like this for the greater safety of US kids or would this do absolutely nothing to protect children from those who are hell bent and so predisposed anyway?

I think not, this man is in fact a bit of a nutter.

Anthony Munns