This article was published 16 years ago
Politics

Our dumb congress at work: new bill requires all wi-fi devices keep records for up to 2 years

Once again when something needs to be address, congress comes in and presents an absolutely, over-protecting, we must know what your doing at all times bill.

Enter Sen. John Cornyn, R – Texas, who introduced a bill that CNET’s Declan McCullagh describes the bill:  “A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user.”

Sounds confusing?  Here’s the bill in a nutshell.  If you have a wireless access point, you will be required, under law, to keep records of where users go on the Internet.  Not only would this include all public wi-fi hotspots like universities, libraries and coffee shops; but it would also apply to personal home routers as well.

Why such a law? To protect the children from online predators.

Thank you, Dateline!

Excuse my language, but I’m calling absolute bullshit on this bill.  It’s not about the children, especially since a new study by Harvard University states that children should worry more about online bullying than being approached by a predator.

It’s more about protecting outdated copyright laws and it wouldn’t surprise my if the Record Artists and Industry of America and the Motion Pictures Association of America were behind this bill.