If you've done nothing wrong...we still want to know what you do.

September 19, 2006 3:14 PM

Gonzales wants Internet records savedfor two years. Because any of you could be child porn perverts. "Gonzales acknowledged the concerns of some company executives who say legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on customers' privacy rights. But he said the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great.
posted by Kickstart70 (100 comments total)

it's crude, blunt, effective framing -- you're either with us or with the paedophiles. you speak up against it, the noise machine will attack you as a paedophile, or a paedophile enabler.

I bet it'll work.
posted by matteo at 3:17 PM on September 19, 2006

argh. argh.
posted by Bageena at 3:21 PM on September 19, 2006

Growing threat, huh.

How much you want to bet that two years down the line they decide they should be prosecute anyone who pirated music, and hey what do you know, we already have all this data to mine!

Does anyone have any idea how many people are actually pedophiles? Sometimes it seems like the Internet is practically bursting at the seams with 'em. Isn't all of this over just a handful of cases, like maybe a hundred? If I had to guess I would guess that there are less then 100 people producing child porn. We really want to record every single person's internet traffic to trace down less then a hundred people?
posted by delmoi at 3:21 PM on September 19, 2006

This is much cheaper than actually protecting children.
posted by aye at 3:22 PM on September 19, 2006

What's everyone freaking out about? I'm sure this information will be be used legally, and if not then laws will be passed to make it legal.
posted by mullingitover at 3:22 PM on September 19, 2006

You first, Gonzales. I'd pay hundreds of dollars to get a look at his incoming and outgoing traffic logs.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 3:23 PM on September 19, 2006

It seems that the growing threat of the government having to actually do a bit of work in order to arrest people it doesn't like pedophiles is indeed great. More legislation, please... preferably something that will make it easy as pie for the Feds to arrest any internet user at any time!
posted by vorfeed at 3:26 PM on September 19, 2006

I was thinking the same thing, delmoi. Are there just internet pedophiles falling from the sky or something?
posted by brundlefly at 3:27 PM on September 19, 2006

Also, aren't most children who are molested the victims of family members? Doesn't that mean there should be cameras in every household?
posted by brundlefly at 3:29 PM on September 19, 2006

Gonzales actually testified in congress about the kiddy porn he'd seen "on the job". But I'm sure he could have avoided looking at it if he'd wanted too, at least as an AG (I dunno about a judge)
posted by delmoi at 3:29 PM on September 19, 2006

What do you have to hide, if you're not doing anything illegal!
posted by robot at 3:35 PM on September 19, 2006

Justice Department officials have said that any proposal would not call for the content of communications to be preserved and would keep the information in the companies' hands.

This part perplexes me. How valuable is the information if it is totally free of content? The to/from/ip/etc. data alone may be relevant, but it hardly sounds like a linchpin of the war on child porn.
posted by brain_drain at 3:39 PM on September 19, 2006

brain_drain: If a known pervert corresponded with other people, this gives them a possibility of getting enough information to get a warrant to search that contact.

Especially if two+ known, unconnected, perverts corresponded with a single person, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a judge allowed a warrant on that information alone.
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:42 PM on September 19, 2006

Gonzales actually testified in congress about the kiddy porn he'd seen "on the job". But I'm sure he could have avoided looking at it if he'd wanted too, at least as an AG (I dunno about a judge)

If he saw it online, the image probably saved onto his hard drive, and that's possession!
posted by Citizen Premier at 3:44 PM on September 19, 2006

The four horsement of the infocalypse strike again - Drug dealers, money-launderers, terrorists, and pedophiles. (original circa 1995)
posted by anthill at 3:45 PM on September 19, 2006

I saw Doug Stanhope recently and he went on this long rant about kiddie porn. Basically making the point that with all the porn thats out there on the web and having seen what he believes to be the majority of it, from scat porn to bestiality to midget porn to porn with people who are missing one leg, when it came to kiddie porn he had never actually seen anything beyond a banged up twenty something in pig-tails.

It was the first time I ever stopped to think about that. I've never seen child pornography, I don't question it's existence I just have no idea where to find it. I mean really, I've seen a lot of messed up excuses for pornography, hell, I've seen allot of messed up excuses for sexuality in General (been to Tiajuana). Porn connoisseur since the early '90s here folks and I can honestly say I have no idea what all these people are squawking about.
posted by paxton at 3:47 PM on September 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

You first, Gonzales. I'd pay hundreds of dollars to get a look at his incoming and outgoing traffic logs.

For a few hundred you can get his cell phone records.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:50 PM on September 19, 2006

paxton: I have seen kiddie porn, and went to lengths to report it (to Canadian authorities) who informed me that since the server was in Japan, and Japan doesn't have laws against photos of naked kids as long as they aren't being penetrated, that there was nothing they (or I) could do.

FWIW, the kids that I saw on that site were European as well as asian, including signs and other words in German and what I suspect was Norwegian.

As well, I often get ICQ spam trying to sell me kiddie porn, which is dutifully reported each and every time. No authority has ever contacted me for followup on these.
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:52 PM on September 19, 2006

it's crude, blunt, effective framing -- you're either with us or with the paedophiles.

Actually, I thought it was remarkably sloppy framing. It only works so long as the frame isn't obviously a device. To actually claim that stomping out child pornography, a problem that no one thinks is exactly ripping out nation apart, is worth yet another erosion of our right to privacy will do nothing except show a few more just how sickeningly arbitrary the regime is.
posted by JHarris at 3:59 PM on September 19, 2006

"I often get ICQ spam trying to sell me kiddie porn"

Please tell me you made that up.
posted by BeerFilter at 4:01 PM on September 19, 2006

I would guess that the infrastructure and implementation costs of this directive to ISPs would vastly exceed the amount in the police budget currently set aside for work on kiddie porn. Which in turn suggests that kiddie porn is not the only motive for this record keeping. Not that that isn't completely obvious.
posted by -harlequin- at 4:02 PM on September 19, 2006

a problem that no one thinks is exactly ripping out nation apart

yeah, nobody cared about that "I killed Jonbenet" guy, it was just a small item on some Colorado papers local pages
posted by matteo at 4:05 PM on September 19, 2006

Please tell me you made that up.

I wish I could, but it happens at least once every two weeks. I guess it's because I have a really old low-digit UIN.
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:09 PM on September 19, 2006

"I often get ICQ spam trying to sell me kiddie porn"

Please tell me you made that up.


I am more surprised to hear that people are still on ICQ. Cool.
posted by Pontius Pilate at 4:10 PM on September 19, 2006

“...legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on customers' privacy rights. But he said the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great.”

Er, what? If it comes right down to it, do I want to spend the money on stopping the perpetrators of child abuse or do I want to stop some perverts swapping pictures, that answer is easy. What, exactly, is the ‘threat’ of child porn on the net?
Yes, granted, it’s terrible to be victimized and have those acts spread around for those people to drool over. But wouldn’t you sorta rather focus on preventing the victimization in the first place?
It’s obvious this is a waste of money. But of course that’s predicated on the less cynical position that this won’t be used to eradicate political enemies and such. We keep cracking wise about the administration on metafilter, matter of time we’re labeled as child perverts. It's cheap and easy.
*takes cynical hat off*
posted by Smedleyman at 4:19 PM on September 19, 2006

We're all pedophiles today.
posted by Krrrlson at 4:24 PM on September 19, 2006

I'd like to see more information about the growing threat, please. If the situation is so dire, shouldn't Mr. Gonzales demonstrate that before he suggest further erosion of civil liberties?
posted by owhydididoit at 4:25 PM on September 19, 2006

like they demonstrated the presence of WMDs in Iraq you mean?
posted by matteo at 4:35 PM on September 19, 2006

Delmoi wrote:

Does anyone have any idea how many people are actually pedophiles? Sometimes it seems like the Internet is practically bursting at the seams with 'em.

That's because almost every single case makes national news because they know it will glue every parents eyes to the screen. It's bank. Pisses me off to no end. When I was a child we were allowed to roam the streets from dawn til dusk without even calling our parents. Now because of all this shit being all over the news parents have to watch their children 24/7 thinking there is a sleezy guy with a van waiting on every corner to pick off their child.

If the Democrats don't stand up against this legislations I say to hell with them.
posted by any major dude at 4:41 PM on September 19, 2006

give up liberty...security...blah...blah...blah
posted by blue_beetle at 4:45 PM on September 19, 2006

Robot wrote:

What do you have to hide, if you're not doing anything illegal!

Are you being facetious? Do you understand why the framers of the Constitution added the Bill of Rights? Because without them, there can be no overthrow of tyrrany. That's what it's about, not about protecting criminals it's about protecting democracy when the criminal become the government. They created the amendments to make it as easy as possible to overthrow the government when it became corrupt - and that in turn made it very easy to warn Americans when a tyrannical regime took charge - they'd start trying to tear down the Constitution. Well, don't say you weren't warned.
posted by any major dude at 4:51 PM on September 19, 2006

The government should also photocopy our letters, and record our phone calls because, you know. Pedophiles. And maybe pedophile terrorists.
posted by washburn at 4:56 PM on September 19, 2006

I liked it better when all we were supposed to be afraid of was killer bees, you could work up a really good head of blubbering fear over some blood-crazed Africanized killer bees. Good times.
posted by Divine_Wino at 5:05 PM on September 19, 2006

All the reasons to hate Bush's wiretapping bill.
posted by homunculus at 5:06 PM on September 19, 2006

I saw Doug Stanhope recently and he went on this long rant about kiddie porn. Basically making the point that with all the porn thats out there on the web and having seen what he believes to be the majority of it, from scat porn to bestiality to midget porn to porn with people who are missing one leg, when it came to kiddie porn he had never actually seen anything beyond a banged up twenty something in pig-tails.

The reason people have seen all of that is because people are paying to host it, and hoping to make money off of it. No one can do that with Kiddy porn, because if they tried they would be arrested. There is a lot of "lolita" stuff, but people are careful to keep records available proving those girls are over 18 years old at least.

In order to find the kiddy porn you have to be plugged into the "underground" kiddy porn networks. It would probably take a lot of work, in order to gain trust of other pedos.
posted by delmoi at 5:07 PM on September 19, 2006

I can foresee a few problems [boingboing.com] with this.

Warning, Goatse program related material above.
posted by Freen at 5:12 PM on September 19, 2006

Another week, another privacy-invasive piece of legislation, another Metafilter thread with predictable knee-jerk reactions. Hysteria, shock, horror, the Constitution, blah blah blah. God, I've heard it all. Countless times.

And it feels good, doesn't it? It feels good to sit there on your asses whiling away your workhours in a cubicule kvetching to your heart's content without actually thinking how you can fight the bastards who want to take all this away from you.

Sure, let off all the steam you want. Let off all manner of vitriol over how bad the government is and how Alberto Gonzalez is the 21st century answer to Goebbels (Godwin!). And then you'll wake up tomorrow and you'll forget. And then they'll do something else. And you'll be here again. Nattering away instead of throwing yourself into the thick o f it.

Okay, that's fine. But don't come bitching to me when they take your rights away. Don't come complaining to me when they take all of your dignity and you didn't fight to stop them.

The fact of the matter is that you don't care enough. If you truly gave a damn, you'd be doing something. You'd be storming the gates. You'd be crippling the Department of Justice with faxes, mails, packages. You'd be protesting until you're blue in the face. You wouldn't let this happen.

You don't want your privacy bad enough to stop them.

So what's it going to be then? Will my post here be followed by the usual spate of anti-Bush responses? Or will we put our heads together and see what we can do to stop this shit right now and do everything we can to make sure that Gonzales' Fourth Amendment-ignoring ass is earning a slapdash living barely getting by on personal injury cases in a dead-end town in the middle of nowhere. Because you and I know that's just the fate he deserves. But without action, without giving a damn hard enough, he wins and we lose.
posted by ed at 5:14 PM on September 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

You think us USians freak out as a nation on the subject of child porn, we got nothing on the UK media. I've read articles on BBC and other british sources that make our public discourse on the subject of kiddie porn/pedophilia seem like calm, reasoned analysis by comparison. Those people are fucking batshit insane about it, so far as I can tell.
posted by wolftrouble at 5:17 PM on September 19, 2006

My memory fails, and I can't recall whether WMDs were the jusitification behind the PATRIOT Act, but the WMD debacle is why I have hope Mr. Gonzales is going to have a hard time with this one. Fool me once bitten, so to speak. The problems are different in two ways, though. First, WMDs are not inherently bad (well, to me they are, but not by our government's reckoning)-- they are dangerous based on who has them. Kiddie porn is inherently bad, no matter who you are (not sure exactly how I feel about this, as kiddie porn doesn't just refer to materials created with the participation of children, but the government clearly reckons it all bad).

The second difference lies in the fact that while there were no WMDs, there apparently are some pedophiles plying the Internet market, and almost certainly there are some groups of pedophiles who use it to communicate and exchange pornography. So, while the threat may be small, it exists.

The real problem I have with this is it is tossing the baby out with the bath water. The freedoms of the Internet are part of its very essence. The freedoms we are supposed to be able to enjoy entail shared peril. I could someday be hit by a bus, but to me, that means I should be careful, and treat buses appropriately, not that buses should be governed to run at two miles per hour so that they pose less of a hazard to pedestrians.
posted by owhydididoit at 5:22 PM on September 19, 2006

It's time for a fast, refreshing, time honored, delicious profit scheme !

1. Find something scary, unusual to many, but neither pandemic nor easy to spot , but hard to prevent by ordinary means
2. Better if sex is involved somehow
3. Say it is upon us, even if car accidents are a lot more frequent and deadly ! RUN ! The motorized phaedophile !
4. Proclaim you will save us !
5. Take our money for this
6. Outsource, claim it is good for market and enrich your incompetent friends while winning the antigovernment argument ! Double p0wn !
7. ?
8. Profit !
posted by elpapacito at 5:27 PM on September 19, 2006

Perfect comment from slashdot:

Root Password to the US Constitution: "child porn"
posted by callmejay at 5:30 PM on September 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

It's hard to surpress a snicker when once again something we've been warning people about for literally decades comes true. When I said back in 1976 "They'll find a way to monitor your every activity!" people called me paranoid.

Soon even your sexual and bathroom activities at home will be recorded. And it'll be okay because you have nothing to hide, right?
posted by davy at 5:30 PM on September 19, 2006

it's crude, blunt, effective framing -- you're either with us or with the paedophiles. you speak up against it, the noise machine will attack you as a paedophile, or a paedophile enabler.

I bet it'll work.

Ordinarily, I'd agree, but this isn't ten years ago. More and more people are online and they've started to realize that kiddie porn dosen't come flooding in once you turn on the modem. Crude framing is dependent on ignorance, and ignorance of the internet has decreased. Plus I imagine a lot of people have stuff they'd rather not see preserved for very long.
posted by jonmc at 5:32 PM on September 19, 2006

Or will we put our heads together and see what we can do to stop this shit right now and do everything we can to make sure that Gonzales' Fourth Amendment-ignoring ass

I really hate to pour cold water on the mob's torches here(mostly because I largely agree that the "threat" isn't as dire as portrayed), but I think people need to be fair about what this is (and, more importantly, isn't) about. This is not about the government searching through the records. This is not about the government wanting "to know what you do" (to quote the post title). This is about imposing record retention requirements on ISPs, so that if the government obtains a warrant in the future (based on probable cause), the records will exist to be subpoenaed. For what it's worth, the government already imposes a host of record retention requirements on private companies -- through employment and other laws (for instance, under OSHA, your employer must preserve your medical records for 30 years). So while I agree that Gonzalez is being hyperdramatic to try to get what he wants, it's also not like this is the end of due process in America.
posted by pardonyou? at 5:36 PM on September 19, 2006

If the Democrats don't stand up against this legislations I say to hell with them.

As you put it, this stuff is bank. It's bank to the dems as well. With the dems and repubs both to rot in hell, put your effort into electorial reform to upgrade to a modern democracy that makes third parties and coalitions viable.
posted by -harlequin- at 5:37 PM on September 19, 2006

jonmc writes "'agree, but this isn't ten years ago"

Man I would love to agree with you, but are we speaking about the same country in which thousand and thousand (very allegedly and probably make-believe) were offended to no end when Janet Jackson half showed a quarter of a (sloppy) tit in Sbowl 2004 ?
posted by elpapacito at 5:38 PM on September 19, 2006

Oh c'mon jonmc, of course the Bush administration will get away with it. Americans already swallowed TWO stolen Presidential elections in a row by the very same candidates, the second AFTER the Enabling Patriot Act and subsequent dictats; what more proof of our essentially moronic, servile and masochistic nature would they need?
posted by davy at 5:39 PM on September 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

The obvious solution is to kill all the children of America, of course, before they can be exploited. Sometimes, as the Bush administration clearly understands, you have to destroy the village to save it.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:41 PM on September 19, 2006

I intend to combat this by filling my browser cache with only the most dull, puerile, and mind-numbing content available on the web. Let those bastards sift through that!

Of course, in the end, this just means that actual people passing around child pornography are just goign to do so in a sophisticated manner. In fact, I sincerely doubt the methods Gonzales is proposing to collect info haven't already been circumvented by anyone brazen enough to trade in anything so illicit. It's not like they're just e-mailing jpgs to each other, I'll bet.

Weren't Austrian officials recently stymied by the fact that that kidnapper guy's computer was a C64?
posted by Durhey at 5:43 PM on September 19, 2006

"You think us USians freak out as a nation on the subject of child porn, we got nothing on the UK media. I've read articles on BBC and other british sources that make our public discourse on the subject of kiddie porn/pedophilia seem like calm, reasoned analysis by comparison. Those people are fucking batshit insane about it, so far as I can tell."

Pro or con?
posted by hal9k at 5:45 PM on September 19, 2006

posted by delmoi: In order to find the kiddy porn you have to be plugged into the "underground" kiddy porn networks. It would probably take a lot of work, in order to gain trust of other pedos.

I think that's kinda the point. If it's underground, how can anyone adequately claim it's threat to humanity?
posted by paxton at 5:46 PM on September 19, 2006

Oh c'mon jonmc, of course the Bush administration will get away with it. Americans already swallowed TWO stolen Presidential elections in a row by the very same candidates,

That's cause they're scared of terrorists. Naughty misdeeds preserved forever? Separate issue. This is assuming, of course, that most of the citizenry can be made to give a fuck either way.
posted by jonmc at 5:51 PM on September 19, 2006

ignorance of the internet has decreased

"it's a series of tubes"
posted by matteo at 6:07 PM on September 19, 2006

George Bush's ignorance never decreases, but he's a special case. One too many scrimmages without a helmet. Don't let this happen to you, kids.
posted by jonmc at 6:08 PM on September 19, 2006

That's cause they're scared of terrorists. Naughty misdeeds preserved forever? Separate issue

OK, but Osama Bin Laden doesn't want to rape Ms Soccermom's kids. Paedophiles do. Talk about fear -- if you were a parent not living in a major city, what would you consider a greater danger to _your_ family, Osama Bin Laden or Joe Childrapist?
posted by matteo at 6:09 PM on September 19, 2006

People will buy into it jonmc, people love themselves a bogeyman to keep them up at night and politicians love the side benefits of people giving up their rights. I don't think a week goes by when one of my conservative work mates doesn't bring up some reason why free speech should only apply to their views and the internet should be censored by the government. It's often because of all those internet predators that they see lurking behind every other byte. These guys are all going to go out and vote and they're going to vote for whoever whips them up into a cowering frenzy but offers to calm their fears with ill-conceived and unconstitutional policies. Wait till Limbaugh and O'Reily spin this, anybody who speaks against it is going to be painted as guilty of paedophilia and it's going to be implied that maybe they should be checked to make sure that they're not hiding something.
posted by substrate at 6:11 PM on September 19, 2006

Sometimes, as the Bush administration clearly understands, you have to destroy the village to save it.

Or, we need more villages created by M. Night Shyamalan with boogeymen to keep us all in line! After all, it takes "fear" to raise a child!
posted by ericb at 6:11 PM on September 19, 2006

These guys are all going to go out and vote and they're going to vote for whoever whips them up into a cowering frenzy but offers to calm their fears with ill-conceived and unconstitutional policies. Wait till Limbaugh and O'Reily spin this, anybody who speaks against it is going to be painted as guilty of paedophilia and it's going to be implied that maybe they should be checked to make sure that they're not hiding something.

The fight fire with fire. Whip everybody else into a cowering frenzy that Bush & Gonzales want to keep records of their chatroom coversations with their 'internet girlfriends' and funny bank transactions, etc.

Don't give up so easy. Sometimes you all seem toi like being defeated, for pete's sake.
posted by jonmc at 6:15 PM on September 19, 2006

Gonzales is scarily obsessed with pornography, and he's got the pro-torture credentials that make him even more scary than Ed Meese.

At least you always knew that John Ashcroft was just fortright (and uptight). You just get the nasty impression that Gonzales is ashamed of the fact that he gets off to pictures of tubgirl every night, and by day uses his office to work out his personal demons.
posted by clevershark at 6:16 PM on September 19, 2006

“Will my post here be followed by the usual spate of anti-Bush responses? Or will we put our heads together and see what we can do to stop this shit right now...”

I didn’t know metafilter was for that ed. I’m in if someone wants to start tho. Meantime I’ve been chatting with my states atty and my congressman. But what’cha got in mind? Need money? Got a PAC? Plenty of organizations out there on this. The EFF is pretty good. I cut them a check every year. As for volunteering beyond what I’m into now - if you’ve got the time, great, but y’know, jobs, kids, such.
/Also, Bush sucks.

“...almost certainly there are some groups of pedophiles who use it to communicate and exchange pornography. So, while the threat may be small, it exists.”

Well...yeah, pedophiles exchanging kiddie porn exists, but it’s not a threat is it? I mean wouldn’t it make sense to focus effort on the production of new material before going after some idiots who trade the same images that have been on the web for years? That aside - wouldn’t it make sense to go focus resources on the bulk individuals who are engaging in child sexual abuse instead of going after the relatively small number of people who put that on the web? Not saying of course those people shouldn’t be investigated and arrested.
It comes down to this “threat” term. What they’re doing is illegal, and if caught should be prosecuted. But let’s not forget why child pornography is illegal - because the act itself is harmful. I’d rather see more resources, time, and effort spent on preventing and dealing with that. But other than that very small nuance in language, I agree with your comment.

“it's also not like this is the end of due process in America.” -posted by pardonyou?

Death by a thousand cuts perhaps? Meh, I’m pro-gun. That mindset tends to come with the territory.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:16 PM on September 19, 2006

Speaking of fighting fire with fire...

Wait till Limbaugh and O'Reily spin this...

Say, what was Limbaugh doing in Hati with a bottle of viagra?
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:17 PM on September 19, 2006

I didn’t know metafilter was for that ed.

Well, it beats just sitting around and bitching.

Well...yeah, pedophiles exchanging kiddie porn exists, but it’s not a threat is it?

I'd say it's a threat to the kids in the porn, but I'm just kooky that way.
posted by jonmc at 6:21 PM on September 19, 2006

But let’s not forget why child pornography is illegal - because the act itself is harmful. I'm not sure that is true. If it is, then why are pictures that don't involve actual children, but pretend to, considered child porn? Am I mistaken about that?
posted by owhydididoit at 6:32 PM on September 19, 2006

I'm afraid this swiftly follows the example of the EU vote to make it mandatory for ISPs to retain records. In that case member states decide how long to impose retention, between 6 and 24 months.

ISPs foot the bill. Which means we foot the bill. Which means we pay for our own chains. Which is nice.


I'm completely baffled by Google being involved in this. I realise they have search records, but those same records would be recoverable from an ISP. Is the big G planning to enter the net access game?
posted by NinjaTadpole at 6:38 PM on September 19, 2006

Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend is not a paedophile. Long live rock.
posted by HyperBlue at 6:54 PM on September 19, 2006

owhydididoit - you may be thinking of something along these lines (MeFi June 2005).

I can't vouch that The Bellman's right on that count, but it's a little hopeful glimmer of sanity so I'll cling to it.



Only now do I realise the search terms I've been using to try and find that link. I limited the search to Metafilter.com, but it's still suspicious, isn't it?
I'll be keeping a watch on this one. Never know what dangerous perversions he has behind those beady eyes.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 6:56 PM on September 19, 2006

“I'd say it's a threat to the kids in the porn, but I'm just kooky that way.” - posted by jonmc

kooky in a not readin’ stuff sorta way?

“Well, it beats just sitting around and bitching.” - jonmc

*checks projects*
*checks askmefi*
*checks metatalk*

Apparently not.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:09 PM on September 19, 2006

Only child molesters care about privacy.
posted by homunculus at 7:10 PM on September 19, 2006

/Did I mention?
posted by Smedleyman at 7:14 PM on September 19, 2006

NinjaTadpole writes "ISPs foot the bill. Which means we foot the bill. Which means we pay for our own chains. Which is nice."

Remember how Lenin used to say "the West will sell us the rope we will use to hang them"?

Perhaps Orwell should have mentioned something about humanity paying for the boot that will be stepping on its face forever.
posted by clevershark at 7:29 PM on September 19, 2006

1. Get clueless people on-line.
2. Their machine gets pwned.
3. HaXor installs bot net.
4. Bots flood the tubes with kiddie porn.
5. Watch little old grannies being frog marched for exchanging child porn (or at least that's what the network records will say).

(and, yes, I understand that there are computer-savy grannies, I'm going with stereotypes here.)
posted by MikeKD at 7:34 PM on September 19, 2006

It occurs to me that, some day, by sheer probability, they're going to arrest someone who's both a terrorist AND a pedophile.

When this happens, we will reach some kind of media-hysteria event horizon, and will all have RFID tags implanted in the base of our skulls.
posted by Mayor West at 7:55 PM on September 19, 2006

ISPs foot the bill. Which means we foot the bill. Which means we pay for our own chains. Which is nice cost-effective.
posted by Rubbstone at 8:43 PM on September 19, 2006

in 5 years, the really underground people of whatever type are going to be using non-internet wireless networks ...

i wonder what cell phones are going to evolve into, also ... hint ... the internet was 95-05 ... cell phones are 06-??
posted by pyramid termite at 9:07 PM on September 19, 2006

Last time I checked, most libraries don't keep a record of what you checked out beyond the current time exactly so your records can't be subpoenaed. I think this is a very similar issue. What if I checked out Lolita approx 6 times in a row? Am I a pervert, an admirer of literature, or just a lazy-ass reader who can't finish a book?

The same sort of paranoia applies for me with the Internet. I find myself going to some very strange places, and I consider myself to be fairly open-minded. Someone else might consider my wanderings to be perverted, degenerate, or possibly even criminal.

I know that generally, they are not supposed to just keep tabs on people, but it is not that far of a jump to imagine protesters having their records scanned for other evidence of "subversive" behavior once they've been arrested.

A nice addition to this is to ask how long until those records get put into the hands of paying customers like what seems to be happening with our tax records.
posted by BeReasonable at 9:22 PM on September 19, 2006

ISPs foot the bill. Which means we foot the bill. Which means we pay for our own chains. Which is nice cost-effective.

Guard: Don't fight it son. Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardize your credit rating.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:50 PM on September 19, 2006

Thank god for Tor and for things like Relakks. Will make it a bit easier to dodge the tracking, though they're not perfect.

Though, with child porn easily available via Tor hidden services, I suppose it will get attacked soon enough in the US.
posted by pandaharma at 10:41 PM on September 19, 2006

(for instance, under OSHA, your employer must preserve your medical records for 30 years)

In what loopty fuck-doodle world does my employer have my medical records?

Seriously, tell us what you meant to say, because that sentence makes no sense.
posted by dglynn at 11:30 PM on September 19, 2006

1.) I used to manage the abuse desk for a large ISP. I can guarantee that child porn exists. I can also guarantee that (as a couple of years ago) it doesn't exist in quantities that would warrant tracking every persons movement through an ISP.

Fuck Gonzales.

2.) I find any reference to Doug Stanhope weird. His (ex-ish)wife Rene was one of my best friends in college. /off-topic... sorry.
posted by quin at 1:15 AM on September 20, 2006

it's crude, blunt, effective framing -- you're either with us or with the paedophilesterrorist. you speak up against it, the noise machine will attack you as a paedophileterrorist, or a paedophileterrorist enabler.

I bet it'll work.

Works perfectly matteo.

For those of you playing along in English, that's an 'anti-terrorism' law that was shoved through in record time right after the London bombings. Took less than a month, passed into law right before everyone went on their annual August holiday. Superceeds even the EU decree posted by NinjaTadpole by 6 months.


Amongst other bullshit, Article 6 details vauge measures neccessary for data retention and user identification by ISPs and any one offering Internet access. In short, a photocopy of the user's ID document is neccessary and data records of the user's activity must be kept, but not content. This is in effect until December 2007, suppposedly.

Have WiFi at home? The same stuff above applies to you. If you have an open router or an unauthorised person uses your connection, you are liable. The law makes no provision for hacked or hijacked connections.

Don't comply with this law? Your business is shut down and you face criminal charges. Criminal, not civil.

And of course when frantically attempting to comply with the law (at a small fry business I worked at), nobody had a fucking clue or could give us a straight answer as to what exactly and in what form (because it's all about forms here) 'data but not content' needed to be in.

Fun times for all.

Paedophiles! Terrar! BitTorrent! CraigsList Trollers! Whatever! Just another bloody excuse for everyone to give up a little more freedom, a little more privacy. Bah.
posted by romakimmy at 2:48 AM on September 20, 2006

jonmc: "I'd say it's a threat to the kids in the porn, but I'm just kooky that way."

Yeah, but the harm is done by the producers of kp, not by the consumers (unless you buy into the argument that consumption leads to production, which doesn't seem to be substantiated by any study I know of). And you'll notice that the legislation is aimed at people possessing and spreading kp, not specifically at those producing it and causing harm to the children. I've seen a lot of porn of different kinds (not kiddie porn), and though I found some of the acts portrayed arousing I never have felt the desire to replicate them in reality; I would argue that this is at least somewhat transferrable to the field of child pornography.

I'm not trying to argue for the pedophiles here, but to quote H.L.Mencken:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

posted by PontifexPrimus at 3:26 AM on September 20, 2006

Child porn is so much easier to plant on someone than drugs. You don't even have to come into their house.
posted by sonofsamiam at 5:58 AM on September 20, 2006

Yeah, but the harm is done by the producers of kp, not by the consumers

well, without the demand of the consumers, the producers wouldn't provide the supply.
posted by jonmc at 6:20 AM on September 20, 2006

I don't blame Gonzales for this. If you've ever been to MySpace, you will find out how many creeps out there wanting to mess with children. For the good guys out there, there is NOTHING to worry about.
posted by henryw at 7:05 AM on September 20, 2006

For the good guys out there, there is NOTHING to worry about.

You have absolutely NO reason to think that's the case.
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:06 AM on September 20, 2006

It's so grotesque when administrations feel the need to flaunt "morality ", as opposed to actually being moral.
posted by Skygazer at 7:30 AM on September 20, 2006

What exactly are the 'Internet Records' that they want saved?

Anything beyond simply saving what IP addresses were visited quickly becomes an impossible data rentention issue.
posted by jsonic at 7:53 AM on September 20, 2006

On the plus side they won't have to torture the URLs out of you.
posted by srboisvert at 8:24 AM on September 20, 2006

Torture isn't used to get information, torture is used to torture people.
posted by sonofsamiam at 8:39 AM on September 20, 2006

jonmc: "well, without the demand of the consumers, the producers wouldn't provide the supply."

Really? I imagine there is, for instance, a lot of amateur S&M porn on the web - just people sharing what they think is erotic (and showing off their gear). Do you assume that these people would cease doing what gives them their kicks in private just because no one looks at their videos anymore? Or that an increased demand would cause people who normally would abstain from such practices to indulge in them, film it and put the videos up?

To clarify: I'm talking about home/hobby stuff here - not professional prostitution (which is a completely different topic) and the dangers to "normal" people who might get "tempted" to try stuff they normally wouldn't.
We're not talking about organzied crime here, like the russian mafia or other syndicates trying to make a buck by selling magazines or videotapes, we're talking about anonymous peer-to-peer trading on the internet, where no money changes hands; that's what this legislation is aimed against, as far as I can tell.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 9:06 AM on September 20, 2006

I think this rates an FPP but I already did mine this week, so: Inside the Feds' Secret Wiretapping Rooms. "Congress is considering three bills to "reform" massive surveillance programs. But secret facilities around the country are already eavesdropping on Americans." (If somebody wants to include that in an FPP please do.)

Oh and by the way, one old Law Enforcement trick is to gather as much data as they can on somebody they don't like, then sort through it to find SOMETHING to use against you. How do you think they got Al Capone on tax evasion, eh? So yes, EVERYBODY probably has something to hide. ("Mr. Jones, if you don't tell us who's selling pot on your block we'll let your wife know you've emailed her sister.")
posted by davy at 9:20 AM on September 20, 2006

For those who criticize the Administration's tactics, please don't forget that we are living in a world that is drastically different from the world in which our laws were created. We didn't have enemies who used airplanes to target civilians. We didn't have creeps sitting behind their computer desks going after kids.
posted by henryw at 9:52 AM on September 20, 2006

Coward.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:01 AM on September 20, 2006

We didn't have creeps sitting behind their computer desks going after kids.

Would you mind providing some evidence as to how the world's changed in such a way that this is now a problem which deserves examining the activities of everyone to catch a very, very few?

This is classic 'won't someone please think of the children' crap. When enforced, the existing laws work just fine. What we are looking at here is a way to monitor people's activities under the guise of preventing child abuse.

We didn't have enemies who used airplanes to target civilians.

How does this have anything to do with examining ISP records to catch child pornographers?
posted by quin at 10:04 AM on September 20, 2006

For those who criticize the Administration's tactics, please don't forget that we are living in a world that is drastically different from the world in which our laws were created.

indeed ... life expectency was much shorter, for one thing

We didn't have enemies who used airplanes to target civilians.

no, we just had enemies who invaded villages and countries and subjected the people to despotism and slaughter

We didn't have creeps sitting behind their computer desks going after kids.

no, they just went outside and got the kids directly and if things got too hot for them they could take a ride to another state or a ship to another continent and no one would ever track them down

fact is, they had more reason to be afraid and paranoid than we do ... and yet, they insisted on a limited government that couldn't stick its nose into everything

now, you were saying?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:10 AM on September 20, 2006

henryw: given the early ages for marriage in prior generations, I'd say we had more "creeps" back then, by your own definition of the word.
posted by kid ichorous at 10:35 AM on September 20, 2006

I would argue that the Bill of Rights was written during extremely perilous times. A hostile border on the North, a smattering of loyalists within, and Native American groups that had sided with the British within claimed territorial borders. The newly independent states were still fighting a cold war on the seas with England, that would soon heat up and result in the burning of Washington D.C..
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:50 AM on September 20, 2006

this won't work... wtf is going on
posted by tonygarcia at 10:51 AM on September 20, 2006

“well, without the demand of the consumers, the producers wouldn't provide the supply.” - posted by jonmc

No offense, but that reveals an extraordinary level of ignorance on this topic and the human condition - or you’re playing devils advocate poorly. You can’t seriously mean to assert that pedophiles are motivated to rape children so they can show pictures of the act to other people are you?

“We didn't have enemies who used airplanes to target civilians. We didn't have creeps sitting behind their computer desks going after kids.” - posted by henryw

Ha ha ha ha! Things were less worrysome back then? Yeah. That’s cute. No, seriously, I thou....AHA! HA HA HA! Wow, what were people doing wasting their time before 9/11 training to extract hostages from airplanes? Hey, stay in school and don’t use drugs, ok?


Look, I have a buddy (VERY religious) who used to hack and crash child porn sites. Now vigilantism is debatable, but his beef was mostly with the aforementioned russian mob and such who were making money from credit card transactions. He (and his group) kept pressing the DOJ to follow up on certain credit card transactions connected with certain addresses - etc. And eventually laws were passed over the strenuous resistance of the credit card companies. This, I don’t have a problem with. Anyone making money off of this kind of material could be motivated to produce more. Under the current laws in the U.S. (this is second hand info tho) I understand that’s covered since it’s prosecutable.
But we’re either accepting child molestation as normal but perverted and shunned by society or abberant.
Me, I would never have sex with a child no matter how much money you shoved in front of me. All other things aside, I’m just not attracted to children. While I might have my price when it comes to having sex with a male (I’m not attracted to men - and it’d be a mighty mighty high price) I don’t consider intercourse with a child “sex.” I wouldn’t - in the same way - screw my grandmother. The act itself is not simply disgusting (as, for me, sex with a man would be) but a violation. I can accept other people being attracted to men, but I cannot accept a person being attracted to a six year old without questioning that person’s sanity.
I’m trying to differentiate the act here from sex in much the same way rape is differentiated from sex. Rape is not at all about that, it is about power, et.al. (there are folks better versed in that subject than me). So as far as I understand the matter pedophiles are to some degree mentally ill - in much the same way rapists are. Forgive the looseness of my thinking, stretchy analogy, and terminology here, I’m not an expert.
But I think the core idea is correct. I can see no situation in which a person would abuse a child in this way for some bizarre kind of fame that wouldn’t otherwise perform such an act in the first place.
The internet - or any form of media - did not create pedophilia after all.
And the primary threat is those individuals who perform those acts not the evidence they leave in their wake.
Again - this is not to say the police should not use that evidence or shouldn’t arrest people who possess it. But by the same token possession of a photograph of someone raping someone else is nowhere near as heinous as actually raping someone.
We want to protect children from child predators not waste our time punishing thought criminals. The best way to do that is with other sorts of programs - programs that are currently underfunded.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:11 PM on September 20, 2006

"I often get ICQ spam trying to sell me kiddie porn"

Please tell me you made that up.


I am more surprised to hear that people are still on ICQ. Cool.

I am more surprised to hear that people pay for internet porn.
posted by cardoso at 1:06 PM on September 20, 2006