The Liberty Papers

Declan McCullough reports at CNet that the Department of Justice is pushing a proposal that would require internet service providers and web sites to keep records of the identity of users who upload pictures or videos:

The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned.

That proposal surfaced Wednesday in a private meeting during which U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, tried to convince industry representatives such as AOL and Comcast that data retention would be valuable in investigating terrorism, child pornography and other crimes. The discussions were described to News.com by several people who attended the meeting.

A second purpose of the meeting in Washington, D.C., according to the sources, was to ask Internet service providers how much it would cost to record details on their subscribers for two years. At the very least, the companies would be required to keep logs for police of which customer is assigned a specific Internet address.

This is only the latest chapter in what has been a multi-year quest by the DOJ, FBI, and Bush Administration to make it easy to spy on internet traffic. Past proposals have included everything from redesigning routers to make electronic eavesdropping easier to allowing law enforcement to conduct internet surveillance without a warrant for up to 48 hours. So far, ISPs and content providers have resisted government efforts to turn them into partners of law enforcement. It’s unclear how much longer that resistance can hold out.