More than 300 MEPs [Members of European Parliament] are calling for laws to require Google to retain more data.
They have signed a written declaration urging that the European Data Retention Directive – which mandates that ISPs should retain basic session data for up to two years – is extended to cover web search providers. Their aim is to set up an “early warning system for paedophiles and sex offenders”.
Written declarations are the European Parliament’s equivalent of the the Commons’ Early Day Motion system, whereby MPs sign up to causes in the hope of drawing attention to or action on their cause.
Sponsored by Italian MEP Tiziano Motti and Slovak MEP Anna Záborská, written declaration 29 (pdf) is close to being adopted by the Parliament. It has 324 of of the requisite 369 MEPs’ signatures.
It’s unclear from the declaration itself how legally-mandated retention of web searches would help create an “early warning system” against paedophiles. Quite possibly though, Motti and Záborská envisage sifting through logs for questionable search terms, linking them to individuals via stored IP addresses, and catching nascent paedophiles before they become a threat to children.
/facepalm
“..envisage sifting through logs for questionable search terms, linking them to individuals via stored IP addresses, and catching nascent paedophiles before they become a threat to children.”
Of course, in no way will it be possible to reverse this so all search queries from a certain IP address can be viewed. (Sarcasm dripping from my keyboard)
“..catching nascent paedophiles before they become a threat to children.”
The thought police, soon to be deployed in the EU if this comes to pass. That will be one hell of a hard accusation to defend yourself against. You have never done anything to children, but some overlord thinks you have done some unseemly search queries so BOOM, you are on the list.
I applaud this action. It will spur development of end to end encrypted and untraceable networks. Good job guys, you just waved a red flag in front of a bunch of geeky bulls.
Eh?
Megan’s law, keeping repeat sex offenders in jail beyond their sentence.
I support those.
And I support this.
Sexual offenders have something wrong with them, I don’t know if it is mental illness or biological or something else … but the protection of children is #1.
I don’t even mind when the little girl gets suspended for bringing aspirin to work or some little kid brings a knife to school and gets 10 days.
Kids have enough problems without extra bullshit to deal with and if they go hunt down all the pedos and catholic priests molestering children or thinking about, so be it.
Note: almost all of those people are male (99.9%).
@#4 “Note: almost all of those people are male (99.9%).” – you obviously forgot trend of the past few years of female teachers molesting children in droves…
Problem on topic you fail to see is slippery slope. What is to stop BigGovt. to sift through records for people disagreeing with them,… Just a stroke of the pen. Result – totalitarian world. There are many better ways to protect children without immanent risk of totalitarian rule.
@5
Dog bites man: zzzz
Man bites dog: news!
The stories of female schoolteachers are news precisely because they are uncommon incidents.
And … internet communications are already regularly surveillanced and have been for a very long time, starting with “Carnivore” back in the 1990s.
Was watching Superman (1978) with my nieces a few days ago. They snickered when the newly landed Superbaby crawls out of the meteor crater with his little peepee hanging out for all to see. Are we pedophiles for watching that scene? Was I abusing the kids by letting them watch such obscenity? Should Google report me since I just did a search to find out what year the movie was made?
I’m all for protecting kids but how many damn pedophiles are there in this world? And how many of them use the net without encryption? IMHO, this is like the war on drugs. It’s better to go after the suppliers than the users.
And just how in the hell can organized groups of pedophiles (eg NAMBLA) openly exist while people who put pix of their two year old in the bathtub on the family’s facebook page get arrested?
Well this explains why Google released their SSL encrypted search.
Nothing wrong with this as a SCREENING device. Hook that up with some objective behavior and you have “reasonable cause” for further action. And all this background activity assumes our overlords are adequately addressing all their other more pressing needs.
The info is THERE so it will get mined just as it should and society will have another dialectic to work its way thru.
Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where the authorities did not screw up so often? That way “we the people” preying on one another could really be focused on and get the help/control/isolation that really would benefit all.
Silly Hoomans.
“Think of the children” one more step on the road to hell 🙁
When thoughts become probable cause, then we are all criminals.
Cursor_
>>The stories of female schoolteachers are news
>>precisely because they are uncommon incidents.
The retards are out in force today.
Where did you get your statistics???
Just take a look at your state’s prison inmate population info, which is almost certainly online. (Florida’s is, if yours isn’t, so look at it.)
By just browsing around for a while you will see that a huge percentage of female inmates are there for underage sex.
You’re thinking of 1963, perhaps.
By the way, in case I didn’t already mention it, you’re a retard.
I don’t want my searches looked at by the government. I do nothing illegal on the Internet, but I still do not want my searches looked at by the government. My freedom is non-negotiable. I am not giving up my right to privacy even if it does put bad guys in jail.
Big Sister is Overhearing You.
The EFF runs the Onion relay network, as I recall. This allows people to use the Internet anonymously. They could also design a ‘bot, also installed on individual users’ computers, that runs searches to all the major search engines on every imaginable nasty and ordinary topic- child porn, bomb-making plans, amateur AlQuaeda wannabee groups, rhubarb pie recipes, Matroska dolls, Faberg’e eggs etc. This would overwhelm and confuse and sink any attempt to find out what folks are really searching for. The goal here is to protect individual privacy, not advocate repulsive habits and interests.