Now even before the funeral has even been had for SOPA and PIPA the Congress of the US is about strike another ineffective blow in the war against pedophilic conduct and child pornography. It is more overreaching on the part of National Security State. This time the Congress is aiming it's big stick at you.

Representative Lamar Smith of Texas' 21^st congressional district has introduced “for himself and” Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida's 20^th congressional district HR 1981 which amends 18 USC 2703 in some major respects.

Lamar Smith is one of the stereotypical Texas lunatics. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz also serves as the chair of the Democratic National Committee. This piece of legislation is short-titled the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 (PCIPA). You can read the current version of this Bill here.

This bill does a couple of very interesting things. First of all it creates a new crime punishable by twenty years in federal prison. The title of this section of the Bill calls this crime “Financial Facilitation of Access to Child Pornography.” The actual elements of this new crime are that (1) someone “knowingly” conducts, attempts or conspires to conduct a financial transaction (2) in interstate or foreign commerce (3) with “knowledge”that such transaction will facilitate access to or possession of child pornography. The Bill expressly exempts law enforcement or anyone acting with the consent of law enforcement from prosecution for this new crime.

Section 4 of the Bill then amends the current section 2703 of Title 18 of the US Code by adding new paragraph (h) to the statute that requires all ISPs (yes yours and mine) to retain for at least one year a log of temporarily assigned network addresses assigned to its customers “that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information under subsection (c)(2) of this section. Now section 2703(c)(2) is where the real damage is done. It requires your ISP to record you name, your address, any local and long distance telephone records or records of session times and durations. It must record your length of service including starting date and types of service utilized and the means and source of payment for such service including bank account and credit card numbers. The statute requires that the ISP release all this information whenever the government presents the ISP with an “administrative subpoena” seeking the information.

An administrative subpoena is a piece of paper. It is signed by a law enforcement official such as an FBI agent that commands the person served to provide certain documents or other things more or less described in the document to the law enforcement agent and/or to show up for questioning by law enforcement. It has the force of law and it is an end run around the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment and requires no finding or determination of probable cause.

Essentially if the law enforcement agency is interested in it you have to provide it to them or talk to them about it or both produce and talk or suffer civil and criminal penalties for a failure to do so.

“What is the harm in this?” you ask. Well for openers it applies to every ISP in this country and to every customer of every ISP. This means simply that your ISP must intercept and trap all sorts of personal information about you. Including your purchase of that sexy little pink underwear you bought for your wife, husband, girlfriend or boyfriend. It applies to your Amazon book purchases, classes you may take on line. Your library habits and the books you read or subscribe to on line. They will share all your bank statements that you accessed from your computer in the privacy of your own home. Essentially since most peoples' computers are simply extensions of their minds it allows Big Brother to pick your brain and gather up your own private thoughts and beliefs at any time whenever any law enforcement officer is curious about what you are up to on your computer.

I have no idea how many internet connections there are in this country but it must be at least a hundred million. That simply means that ISPs are storing private and personal information for a hundred million people for at least a year or until Uncle Sam asks for it.

What's the harm you say because you know you aren't a child pornographer. The harm is that it does violence to fundamental constitutional rights and guarantees in the name of possibly capturing a child pornographer (you know don't you that pornographers don't pay to see their own productions) and that it is more likely that Uncle will simply catch some guy downloading pay for view kiddie porn. It is not an efficient use of limited resources and will not make any discernible difference in the government's war against sex. It is however more evidence that the US is not the Land of the Free as we are taught to believe from our first days in school as children.  I was really shocked that a faux progressive like Wasserman-Schultz  would have any connection with such a nonsensical, in effective and anti-liberty legislation. With friends like Debbie Wasserman-Schults who needs enemies?