Chris Soghoian writes:
On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing in support of mandatory data retention legislation. The bill that they have proposed requires that Internet Service Providers, such as Comcast and Time Warner, save records of the IP addresses they assign to their customers for a period of 18 months.
Data retention is a controversial topic and loudly opposed by the privacy community. To counter such criticism, the bill’s authors have cunningly (and shamelessly) named it the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011. This of course means that anyone who opposes data retention must go on record as opposing measures to catch sexual predators.
Read more on Ars Technica.