U.S. government denies plans for Net monitoring system
“The Department of Homeland Security denied a report Friday that the U.S. government was planning to release a proposal requiring ISPs to help build a centralized system designed to monitor Internet use. <Heck, I sure believe them, don’t you?>
The denial came after the New York Times reported in its online edition Friday that a final version of “The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace” report, due out early next year, called for the creation of a centralized Net monitoring system.
Despite the government’s claims that it has no plans to monitor Internet use, Stewart Baker, a partner with Washington, D.C.-based law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP who represents a group of ISPs, said Friday that his clients have seen a version of the report that includes a Net monitoring system.
“This struck us as a bad enough idea that we should talk about it,” Baker said in an interview.”
It’s not just a bad idea, it’s a terrible idea. First they want to monitor everything we buy, what book we check out of the library, etc. through the grotesque Total Information Awareness (what an Orwellian name) program, now they wish to monitor everything happening on the Net. Do you trust our government to handle this information responsibly and do the right thing with it? I didn’t think so. Neither do I.
And, as I’ve pointed out earlier, it can’t work. There’s just too much data out there to filter in an effective, timely manner. Not to mention that the data sources are always changing, as are the data formats. Ain’t no way it can be done. Which will mean a vastly expensive failure of a system that will undoubtably make major errors and, oh, mark you as a terrorist when you aren’t one.
Plus, of course, it’s yet another ugly, intrusive, no doubt unconstitutional attempt by the lunatics in the White House to put all of us under surveillance all the time.