Your ISP as Net watchdog

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Re: Once again, I agree with you, but (from OButterball): Hi, OButterball.

I too, see shenanigans in 2000 and 2004, but I gather you and I would probably draw opposite conclusions about whom the guilty party is. To my way of thinking, the 2000 election was a great example of what havoc can be wrought by not accepting the limitations of the voting system. IMHO, if you don't correctly follow voting instructions, you shouldn't *expect* your vote to count. To me, the part that would be laughable (if it wasn't so important an issue) was people double- and triple-checking ballots to try to ascertain if someone had tried, but been unsuccessful, in punching a hole through a piece of paper. Again, IMHO, if you can't complete this simple task, maybe you should just cut your losses and stay home. There were shenanigans with absentee military ballots (which normally favor Republicans) and the infamous accused felon ballots. I'm convinced that *all* of these things happen in every election, but that the race was close enough that time for the margin of mechanical error to play a role, where it never had before. (Incidentally, if Gore had simply asked for a full recount of all of Florida, he probably could have won. Having the recount in some counties and not others is what left his case in the Supreme Court vulnerable to the equal protection clause.)

In 2004, your guy just lost. :P The only thing you could say to mitigate that is that in Ohio some people didn't get to vote before the polls close, but some people always don't get to vote before the polls close. That's neither new nor surprising. The fact of the matter is, if Kerry was a decent candidate, he would have wiped the floor with Bush. He could have done it, too. He just didn' really stand for anything. Whatever you want to say about Bush, he's very steadfast in his beliefs (even if, like me, you don't agree with many of them).

Anyway, I don't see anything "1984" about those events. The 2000 election was contested, and Kerry and Edwards both conceded that there was no way they could win the 2004 election with a recount.

Now, as to the matter at hand:

I certainly agree that information aggregation is a real problem, but I don't see it as being a matter of retention. It's a matter of how the ISPs use what they retain, and I'm all for strict guidelines in that regard. I don't see anything in the article about how the data they're collecting would be sent to the government. What information would the government be entitled to, and how would they go about obtaining it. (Would it be a standard search warrant, a "sneak and peek" warrant, a subpoena, or what?)

My main problem with the article is that it makes it sound like your ISP is going out of its way to spy on your activities. It's not. It's simply collecting the information that passes through its networks in the course of doing business, just like it says in your end-user agreement. The real issue is the same as it's always been: How do you keep the "bad guys" from getting that information, and under what circumstances can the government accss it? It seems to me the first question will always be raisable, and the second question is answered by ISPs individually right now. Check your end user agreemnet. Your mileage may vary.; Posted by: bhartman36 Posted on: 06/17/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use