34 ISPs Subpoenaed By U.S. Government

[donsu]

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/31/1347212

seanonymous writes "The Justice Department, in their continued effort to revive questionable legislation, has subpoenaed dozens of ISPs for files. Considering that ISPs generally host their users' mail, this seems like it could be a larger issue than their fight with Google over search queries. Some, like Verizon, even resisted the call for information." From the article: "Representatives for McAfee and Symantec confirmed that the companies had received and complied with the subpoenas. A spokeswoman at LookSmart did not immediately return a phone call. Many of the subpoenas asked for information related to products that can be used to filter out adult content for underage Internet users. Symantec's subpoena, dated June 29, asked for a wide range of information about the price and popularity of the Internet filtering products it sells and how the products are used by customers. " Information Week has a number of the documents involved, including the letter of objection from Verizon.
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[Why Syzygy]

1. Isn't one thing that makes the internet great

the lack of government oversight? I think so. I hope they keep their noses OUT of it.
How can they do this? This is so unconstitutional. I don't want an internet license!

[Ian David]

2. Might be time to invest in an anonymizer account?

http://www.anonymizer.com/default.html

[Occulus]

3. Huuuuuuuhhhh?

McAfee? Symantec??

I'll seperate these sentences, because I think it's important to consider these two very different concepts both individually and as a unit:

"Many of the subpoenas asked for information related to products that can be used to filter out adult content for underage Internet users."

"Symantec's subpoena, dated June 29, asked for a wide range of information about the price and popularity of the Internet filtering products it sells and how the products are used by customers."

How does the first relate to the second? Where's the connection between the two?

In another thread, I posited that perhaps Justice is going to try to use the DMCA to nail people who download porn "for free". It's the widest possible net they have- are they trying to figure out how people might use virus and adware scanners to keep from being caught under the DMCA's provisions?

This latest move makes about || <--- that much sense...

[Solo_in_MD]

4. Does anyone know the current US law about data retention required of ISPs?

Which leads to the question, outside of login records, why any ISP is keeping those kind of records?