Hawaii Lawmaker Acknowledges Defeat On Bill To Monitor All Web Users

Plans to resurrect legislation in 2013

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
February 1, 2012

A Hawaii politician who proposed legislation requiring Internet providers to keep records of every website their customers visit has finally acknowledged that the bill is dead in the water.

State Representative John Mizuno says he has conceded to an “incredible” national backlash against H.B. 2288 (PDF) a bill that would have required the creation of virtual dossiers on state residents.

The legislation called for “Internet destination history information” and “subscriber’s information” such as name and address to be saved by providers for two years. The records would have also included a list of Internet Protocol addresses and domain names visited.

“It’s generated a lot of national attention,” Mizuno, a Democrat from Oahu, told CNET’s Declan McCullagh, who first exposed the proposed bill.

“I’ve taken into consideration the thousands of e-mails (which were often) colorful and passionate, which is absolutely fine… This bill just isn’t ready. It needs a lot of work.” Mizuno added

Although Mizuno said that he had now recommended “that we kill this bill,” he plans to return to it in 2013.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The justification behind the legislation was to provide police with a record of pedophiles “going after the kids, trolling for the kids,” according to Mizuno.

Daniel Leuck, a software design expert told CNet “While I respect Rep. Mizuno’s attempt to assist law enforcement in catching dangerous criminals, his approach is dangerously flawed.”

“There is no question that having two years of browsing history for every resident would make it easier for law enforcement. So would warrantless searches of people’s homes.” Leuck explained.

Mizuno’s bill had absolutely no privacy restrictions written into it to specify exactly what internet providers would be capable of doing with customer information. Encryption of data for security was not considered, and neither was requiring police to obtain a court order before viewing the information.

Had the bill passed, it would have set a huge precedent for national internet legislation, given that the Justice Department has only lobbied the U.S. Congress to record origin IP address, and not destination IP addresses.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

This article was posted: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 12:05 pm

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