With H.R. 1981, the jaws of law will eat your Internet rights

Network World - You remember in Jaws where a girl is swimming in the ocean and the music starts playing ("dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun ...")? You know what's going to happen ... at the last moment she sees the shark's dorsal fin slicing through the water and, "eeeekkkkkkkkk!" ... too late! CHOMP!

Well, that's sort of the way things are shaping with a bill that has implications just as worrying as the two recently squashed but not yet truly dead bills, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), that I sliced and diced a couple of weeks ago here in Backspin.

The sea in this horror movie is once again the Internet, the swimmer is you and me and all U.S. Internet users, and the shark is called the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011."

The problem with this bill lies not in its core intentions, to provide a framework in which to define, prosecute and punish online child pornography. Quite obviously that is a hugely important topic and one that needs to be addressed in an intelligent, realistic and effective manner. The problem is in its implementation and unintended consequences.

Sponsored by the out-of-touch and uninformed Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who was also ("dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun ...") the lead sponsor of SOPA ("eeeeeekkkkkk"), the bill, HR 1981, was introduced last year to broad condemnation by pretty much anyone with a clue about the online world (the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Library Association were particularly vocal).

Alas, people with a clue are apparently not among the 39 co-sponsors of the bill, which was passed by House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 16 and placed on the Union Calendar. That may not sound important, but according to several sources, including The Next Web, this means the bill has been given what is called "expedited consideration," which puts it on a fast track to being passed!

So, what's so bad about the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011"? Well, hidden among the good provisions is the requirement that "A commercial provider of an electronic communication service shall retain for a period of at least one year a log of the temporarily assigned network addresses the provider assigns to a subscriber to or customer of such service that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information ..."

You might want to go back and read that again because it's couched in language that makes its goal somewhat unclear. What the proposed legislation wants is for your ISP to keep detailed records of the IP addresses assigned to you so if you are suspected of being a bad guy at some future time, your past activities can be reviewed.