The FBI made it clear this week that it wants Internet service providers to keep track of your web surfing behaviors. According to the CNet article on the topic, the agency invoked the likes of busting child pornography in support of its call for monitoring, but the move will likely be met with calls of “big brother” and resistence from ISPs.
The bureau is pushing for ISPs to keep a two-year backlog of “origin and destination information,” emphasizing that it was looking to keep logs of routing, not content.
No details are currently available on the exact information the FBI is calling for, as much of the report comes from CNet’s Declan McCullagh, who attended the meeting on Thursday where “law enforcement representatives spoke”. McCullagh quotes Greg Motta, chief of FBI’s digital evidence section, as saying that issues of privacy and technical feasibility have shaped the request.
“The question at least for the bureau has been about non-content transactional data to be preserved: transmission records, non-content records…addressing, routing, signaling of the communication,” Motta said. Director Mueller recognizes, he added “there’s going to be a balance of what industry can bear…He recommends origin and destination information for non-content data.”
While the emphasis is being placed on “routing” information and not “content”, a lot of content can be gleaned from these connections.
