It appears that we are approaching a critical mass against both data retention policy legislation and internet censorship, as it’s trickling down to the state level. But, vigilance is required, for these sort of initiatives have a way of mutating into repackaged, repurposed bills.
Hawaiian state legislators had been considering a bill entitled HB 2288, which would require any entity providing internet service—Internet Service Providers (ISPs), cafes, libraries, etc—in Hawaii to keep detailed customer records, all made available to the Hawaiin government for, naturally, crime-fighting purposes. The bill would have required service providers to keep records for two years, ranging from internet protocol address, domain name, host name and search queries.
Such was the invasiveness of the bill that it prompted EFF to write, “EFF has been fighting against mandatory data retention programs around the world and in the United States, but this is one of the most poorly drafted pieces of data retention legislation we’ve ever seen.”
Here is an excerpt from the bill’s text:
Recordkeeping requirements for internet service providers. Any internet service provider that providers internet service to a consumer in the State shall retain consumer records for no less than two years. The required data for the consumer records shall include each subscriber’s information and internet destination history information. Destination information shall include any of the following:
(1) Internet protocol address;
(2) Domain name; or
(3) Host name
This, in fact, is pretty much the entirety of the bill. Apparently Hawaiian legislators are Zen masters of simplicity. Read the brief bill over at capitol.hawaii.gov.
According to AP, the bill, which was apparently crafted to fight online identity theft, only received support from one person at a public hearing. Gordon Bruce, Honolulu’s information technology director, stated that it would adversely effect voluntary private-public Wi-Fi partnerships, forcing them to shut down.
Bruce stated, “the requirement of capturing and storing this data” with no single company in charge “will make it cost-prohibitive to those who volunteer to participate in this very successful program.”
Again, it seems as though we are approaching a critical mass in the fight against data retention and internet censorship.
