491S Blog Post W/E 3/407

"Justice Department Takes Aim at Image-Sharing Sites"

This article was extremely interesting to me in its connotation of internet responsibility and culpability. One of the major issues arising over internet usage is the lack of accountability. Here the government sees the need for internet providers to maintain a database of who is posting what as a way of making it easier for police to track crimes such as child pornography. However, there are numerous ramifications of this that are less savory. First, though the DOJ is only asking for a track of who posts images now, what is to say that this won't eventually become further reaching. A complete list of every single thing that a person does on the internet. Also, even if this is restrained to images, what will prevent an overzealous university from searching through pictures "finding" crimes such as possible underage drinking.
In general, with the lack of privacy already faced by Americans, this is yet another attack on liberty by the Administration. Even if one is not doing illegal things on the internet, what if someone gets a hold of their records and there are some websites that they have visited that could cause them some embarrassment, such as a pornographic site. In the wrong hands, this could ruin someone's life.
It is not arguable that many facets of the internet need more accountability. However, mandating that ISP's make it easier for governmental entities to spy on their customers, is not the best way for this to occur. Furthermore, as the article states, sites like Google already retain searched items indefinitely. The government needs to step back and not legislate further incursions into individual privacy.