What do you do when you're pushing a sweeping digital data-retention bill through Congress and want to be sure your rivals never have a chance of opposing the thing on grounds that it violates basic privacy rights?Give it an outrageously misleading title. You know, something most sane humans just wouldn't question, like the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011:, which more likely has everything to do with forcing Internet providers to hoard logs of sensitive user data than protecting kids. A House panel approved the measure Friday by a vote of 19 – 10.It was a touchdown for conservative House Republicans, who've been pressing for ISPs to record customer data. The bill, H.R. 1981, would require commercial providers to archive customer activity for a year, just in case the cops have any reason to rifle through your digital dossier somewhere down the line. And it would cast a wide net, thanks to an 11-hour rewrite that added names and addresses, phone, credit card and bank account numbers and temporarily-assigned IP addresses to the scope of snoopable information.A 7-16 panel vote smote down an amendment that would've required providers only store IP addresses.This creates "a data bank of every digital act by every American," Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who led Democratic opposition to the measure, tells CNET, which would "let us find where every single American visited Web sites."In other news, the Fighting The Good Fight Against Savages Who Clip Their Fingernails Whilst Riding Public Transit Act of 2011 just passed the House Judiciary committee unanimously.
