sailingaway
05-24-2013, 09:46 PM
The biggest thing to come out of Texas may turn out to be a blow to Internet freedoms: legislators there are considering a bill that would compromise privacy on the Web for all residents of the Lone Star State.
Lawmakers in the State Senate are expected to vote Monday on a bill that, if passed, would compel Internet Service Providers (ISPs) anywhere in the world to fork over private Web records if that information could aid in a criminal investigation.
Federal legislation already in place would likely trump any attempts from Texas prosecutors to pry personal ISP records or other online communications from the likes of social networking sites, but the efforts on behalf of Lone Star lawmakers to get the ball rolling on a new cyber-spy bill are indeed very real. Last week, its companion bill in the State House of Representatives passed unanimously, and similar outcome in the Senate is all now expected any moment. Now should SB 1052 proves victorious in the Senate, an Internet surveillance bill written in Texas but with international implications could be added to the law books later this year.
Ben Sherman of the Burnt Orange Report cautioned in a blog post last week that the bill could be very dangerous to all Americans if passed because it would let local authorities seize electronic records held on servers outside of Texas.
“The bill requires any Internet provider to people in Texas (that is - just about the entire Internet) to respond to search warrants for online communications in 4-30 days. That is an extremely narrow window which makes it difficult for Internet providers to keep users' other information private,” he wrote.
Following the failed attempts to pass cybersecurity bills on a national level, as seen most recently in the stalled Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a number of state and local governments have considered bills that would bring the tools asked for in aborted federal acts into the hands of prosecutors in Texas.
Whereas CISPA sought to find a way to ease the sharing of potentially dangerous information between third-party businesses and the federal government, the efforts coming out of Texas would ensure that ISPs and any other businesses that operate over the Web would have to relinquish user data if a police officer argues there is probable cause it is pursuant to an investigation.
more: http://rt.com/usa/state-internet-texas-bill-536/
Lawmakers in the State Senate are expected to vote Monday on a bill that, if passed, would compel Internet Service Providers (ISPs) anywhere in the world to fork over private Web records if that information could aid in a criminal investigation.
Federal legislation already in place would likely trump any attempts from Texas prosecutors to pry personal ISP records or other online communications from the likes of social networking sites, but the efforts on behalf of Lone Star lawmakers to get the ball rolling on a new cyber-spy bill are indeed very real. Last week, its companion bill in the State House of Representatives passed unanimously, and similar outcome in the Senate is all now expected any moment. Now should SB 1052 proves victorious in the Senate, an Internet surveillance bill written in Texas but with international implications could be added to the law books later this year.
Ben Sherman of the Burnt Orange Report cautioned in a blog post last week that the bill could be very dangerous to all Americans if passed because it would let local authorities seize electronic records held on servers outside of Texas.
“The bill requires any Internet provider to people in Texas (that is - just about the entire Internet) to respond to search warrants for online communications in 4-30 days. That is an extremely narrow window which makes it difficult for Internet providers to keep users' other information private,” he wrote.
Following the failed attempts to pass cybersecurity bills on a national level, as seen most recently in the stalled Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a number of state and local governments have considered bills that would bring the tools asked for in aborted federal acts into the hands of prosecutors in Texas.
Whereas CISPA sought to find a way to ease the sharing of potentially dangerous information between third-party businesses and the federal government, the efforts coming out of Texas would ensure that ISPs and any other businesses that operate over the Web would have to relinquish user data if a police officer argues there is probable cause it is pursuant to an investigation.
more: http://rt.com/usa/state-internet-texas-bill-536/