Mueller Wants Data Retention!
October 20th, 2006By Kevin McTiernan
In a speech at the International Association of Police Chiefs conference in Boston, FBI Director, Robert Mueller, made the case for Data Retention. This echoes a request just over a month ago from Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Of concern is the ability for terrorists and criminals to cloak themselves “in the anonymity of the Internet.?” Data Retention is the requirement for an ISP or Service Provider to keep records of communications and store them for a period of time. The purpose of this is to allow Law Enforcement (under court approval and judicial oversight) to request the records from the carrier to conduct investigations.
What they are asking for is not new. The European Union passed Data Retention legislation in December 2005 (Directive 2006/24/EC). It requires retention for a period of 6 to 24 months. It also requires all service providers to comply by September 15, 2007 (for traditional telephony service) and by March 15, 2009 (for Internet access service). Member states can legislate the retention period and the deadline for Internet access (September 2007 or March 2009).
Ireland, Spain, Malta, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, France, Slovakia and Hungary currently require compliance for traditional telephony and Internet access by September 2007. The United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, Cyprus, Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Finland, and Latvia require compliance for traditional telephony by September 2007 and Internet access by March 2009.
The fact that the legislation in the U.S. is behind Europe on Data Retention should not be a surprise. The “cuffs?” put on U.S. law enforcement (no pun) when compared to European law enforcement is staggering. The mandate for carriers to assist in the interception of Internet Access in the U.S. is only coming around in May 2007; Dutch ISPs have been mandated to provide this since 2002! The intercept order rate in Italy is 1 per 600 persons; it’s about 1 per 170,000 in the U.S. Italy authorizes 300 times more intercepts per person than the U.S.!
Comments of Director Mueller and Attorney General Gonzalez.