Two leading Republican lawmakers from Texas, Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Lamar Smith, have filed identical legislation in their houses of Congress that would require a broad range of Internet service providers to maintain logs of user data for up to two years.
The bills, known as the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act (or Internet SAFETY Act), are designed to enhance the federal government’s fight against the producers and distributors of child pornography. In addition to the data-retention policies, the act would establish new penalties of 10 years for people who set up Web servers to distribute child pornography and 20 years for those who fund such activities. The act would also double the funds for the FBI’s anti-child pornography initiative, Innocent Images.
At a press conference with Smith and law-enforcement agents, Cornyn urged support for the legislation. “While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business,” Cornyn said, “its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children. Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal and family level.”
Potentially Broad Application
But critics are already raising concerns about the bill’s broad language, particularly with respect to the definition of Internet service provider. The bill applies to any “provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service,” which could conceivably be interpreted to include everyone from the largest ISP down to an individual who has set up a Wi-Fi network at home.
While most national or regional ISPs have the capability to collect and store IP address information associated with specific users, such record-keeping may be beyond the capability of smaller access providers, like coffee shops with free Wi-Fi. Homeowners might have an even more difficult time complying.
In an op-ed piece…