Something I will never think is a good idea: requiring internet service providers to keep track of everything anyone visits online and keeping those records for a year.

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee voted 19-10 for H.R. 1981, a data-retention bill that will require your ISP to spy on everything you do online and save records of it for 12 months. California Rep Zoe Lofgren, one of the Democrats who opposed the bill, called it a “data bank of every digital act by every American” that would “let us find out where every single American visited Web sites.”

Sure, the title makes the bill sound like something no reasonable person would oppose (“Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011”), but is creating an insane information police state regarding the internet the best way to keep porn away from children? If anyone thinks this database would only be used to fight child pornography, they’re insane (RIAA, anyone?) I think I’d prefer law enforcement agencies get a warrant before snooping through my browsing history, but thanks anyway.

In Arizona news, both Arizonan members of the committee, Trent Franks (R) and Ben Quayle (R) voted to move the bill out of committee. You’d think Quayle would be sensitive to privacy issues concerned online behavior, but I guess he’s moved on from the stage of his life.

For more information about this terrible, terrible proposal, visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s site.

This article appears in Jul 28 – Aug 3, 2011.

The editor of the Tucson Weekly. I have no idea how I got here.

21 replies on “Hey, Congress! What the Hell?”

  1. Congress has been controlled by the liberals for 45 of the last 50 years, which has caused both of the last two recessions, and will cause the next recession in 15 or so years, yet Dan Gibson seems to feel the need to call out conservative Congress votes. If you morons had any clue as to how corrupt both sides are, you would revolt today. However, thanks to the public school system, the entire country is gnawing on their fingernails waiting for the melodrama to end, and determine how much money, house, business, education opportunities they are going to loose. Let me explain something to you people, if you are a liberal, you are a looser, if you are a conservative, you are a looser.

  2. Few things make me happier than when someone calls me a “moron” and a “looser”.

    I’m calling out this particular vote. Believe me, if this same idiotic bill was proposed by Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, or Cornelius and our future ape overlords, I’d be just as upset.

  5. no, its conservative douchebags such as yourself that is bringing this country to its knees major pain. a place conservative men like to be apparently. A looser, huh? It seems that conservatives haven’t the slightest clue what they speak of, nor have any edumacation background to back up their pathetically ignorant viewpoints. They are useful idiots to the big corporations and wealth of this country, but pathetically follow whatever rich conservative says about liberals. How does it feel to be this brainwashed by those who doesn’t give two cares about you? They tell useful idiots such as yourself these things because they know you’ll lap it up like some degenerate hobo who knows nothing of reality. This country will only fix itself when you conservative morAns get out of your deluded state and start helping the MAJORITY of the country who is trying to help everyone live healthier more productive lives. Even if you are an uneducated looser.

  6. Hey, Major Chaos, it’s “loser” not “looser.” Talk about the public school system.

  7. Anytime an individual, a family or a country abandons conservative values, they will find themselves in trouble. Just look at the state of the “liberal” countries across the world. They are teetering on the brink.

  8. So how do they know who was on the computer, this is stupid waste of money, beyond belief, my computer is in my home it is not password tied up for each person that wants to use it.

  9. I thought we were in a debt crisis. This seems like a bunch of nonsense spending, not to mention a horrible breach in privacy.

    So, Major Chaos, since you know (as the rest of us publicly-schooled morons apparently do not) that both sides are corrupt… how’s your revolution going?

  10. It is none of the governments business what the american people do online. If this happens to capture my IP and I am questioned about it, I WILL file a law suit. I will persue it to the full extent of the law. Not even the government is exempt from the law. If that fails, then I will just blow up congress and end all the nonsense that has been going on for the last 40 years.

  11. It doesn’t matter what your political position is, If you are willing to keep fighting and blaming each other and where your political position like a foot ball team. You are doing what the corrupt Government wants. As long as they have you fighting and mad you are distracted enough so the Government can keep doing and lying about what ever it wants. Its funny how I don’t see one person in politics that is broke or worried about their pay check. I have herd the same lies and promises every year as long as I can remember. Still the same groups insulting each other and nothing gets better. Keep beating your chest maybe someday your Ba&*( will drop and we can get something done.

  13. Joker, the revolution is all around you, it is about converting the poor into slaves of society, and after this “left/right agreement” there will be a larger percentage of poor people to serve the rest of us. It is the way of the universe, the poor will always be the fodder for the minority obtaining and preserving wealth. To win, all you have to do is play the right against the left, and you win every event. What you are seeing in congress is exactly what i am describing.

  14. Chargerq, evoking feminine products and homosexual tendencies, nice play, but so very last decade. Just keep thinking you are different from the conservatives, and your corporate lending institution owners will be pleased. The corporations you bash, have rules made by congress, and again, for the last 45 out of 50 years, the laws have been predominately generated by the libtards. Remember, the other “side” as you like to think, TOTALLY supports large corporations. Again, my point, no difference between the “sides”

    Can some English Phd fix the grammar on this for a penny?

  16. Chargerq, from wiki,

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Jump to: navigation, search
    Page semi-protected
    Douche
    Intervention

    A vaginal bulb syringe with lateral holes near the tip of the nozzle (about 1 cm, or ½ inch, thick).
    ICD-9-CM 96.44
    MeSH D044364
    This “fountain syringe” should only be used for douching, by replacing the attached enema nozzle with the vaginal nozzle (shown bottom left). The vaginal nozzle is longer and thicker and has lateral holes.

    A douche (play /ˈduːʃ/) is a device used to introduce a stream of water into the body for medical or hygienic reasons, or the stream of water itself.

    Douche usually refers to vaginal irrigation, the rinsing of the vagina, but it can also refer to the rinsing of any body cavity. A douche bag is a piece of equipment for douching—a bag for holding the fluid used in douching. To avoid transferring intestinal bacteria into the vagina, the same bag must not be used for an enema and a vaginal douche.

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Jump to: navigation, search
    Look up douchebag in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

    Douchebag may refer to:

    * Device used to administer a douche

    Like i said, soooo last decade, you can do better. But you are a CONSERVATIVE, you just dont realize it is now the same as a liberal these days.

  17. adj. loos·er, loos·est
    1. Not fastened, restrained, or contained: loose bricks.
    2. Not taut, fixed, or rigid: a loose anchor line; a loose chair leg.
    3. Free from confinement or imprisonment; unfettered: criminals loose in the neighborhood; dogs that are loose on the streets.
    4. Not tight-fitting or tightly fitted: loose shoes.
    5. Not bound, bundled, stapled, or gathered together: loose papers.
    6. Not compact or dense in arrangement or structure: loose gravel.
    7. Lacking a sense of restraint or responsibility; idle: loose talk.
    8. Not formal; relaxed: a loose atmosphere at the club.
    9. Lacking conventional moral restraint in sexual behavior.
    10. Not literal or exact: a loose translation.
    11. Characterized by a free movement of fluids in the body: a loose cough; loose bowels.

  18. Sorry Major Chaos, your incoherent rants aren’t worthy of a reply. Have a good evening and a great life.

  19. It is funny to read about someone busting on their version of who or what is uneducated . Who really is educated someone who goes to a library and learns for free? or the one that pays the most for a piece of paper that says they are educated? You don’t even have to show up to most college classes,or you show up and leave. You just have to have the money. You wouldn’t believe how many people hold some very High Degrees and never even paid back the money for College.Just think of the cost paid by those just for our freedom of speech.And so many of the special educated have the least respect for their right. I believe they are the same ones who claim we landed on the moon, The same moon we don’t have the protective suits to this day that can withstand the Radiation.That may explain why we didn’t build a space station on the moon where we could have launched from there, into farther reaches of space.I better go get me some of that expensive education so I can trash others , after all so many people die just so we can trash each other .

  20. You all know that if you don’t perform at work what happens? You get fired and more often than not it may well be for a small infraction. I’m thinking we should FIRE President Obama, Congress and the rest of the malcontents for their ineptness. America is not the country it used to be nor are the Americans!! I was taught in school to respect and honor your country. Look at what has happened in the last several years with Obama at the helm. The politicans should be ashamed at themselves for what they have done. Fire them or take away their monthly stipends and paychecks and see what happens. They no longer represent the Americans – they represent themselves.

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