Freeh Wants ISPs to Collect
User "Caller ID" Data for FBI
(March 10, 1998) FBI Director Louis Freeh told a U.S. Senate committee today that he wants Internet Service Providers to keep records on their users' "caller ID" and the associated Internet Protocols, for use by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Freeh testified at a hearing on preventing child exploitation on the internet.
Freeh also used the occasional to denounce unregulated encryption technology. Freeh's prepared written statement asserted that the FBI "has uncovered sexual Predators who use encryption in their communication with each other and in the storage of their child pornography computer files. This encryption is extremely difficult, and often impossible, to defeat. It is essential that law enforcement agencies at all levels of government maintain the ability, through court order, to access encrypted communications and data relating to criminal activity."
In testimony packed with statistics on numbers of cases, indictments, and convictions, Freeh offered no data of the frequency of use of encryption in child exploitation crimes. In his verbal testimony he asserted that "we do have subjects using encryption to commit cases against children."
Freeh also suggested that there be a "national DNA database".
The event was a hearing of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary, of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Freeh also testified regarding child pornography on the interent, FBI use of undercover online investigators against child predators, and various meetings, conferences, and symposia to prepare investigators and prosecutors, coordinate law enforcement efforts, and raise public awareness.
Freeh's prepared statement for the Committee record offered some specifics about ISP data keeping. "The telephone industry is required by Federal Communications Commission regulation to maintain subscriber and call information for a fixed period of time. It would be beneficial for law enforcement if Internet Service Providers adopt a similar approach for retaining subscriber information and records for screen names and associated Internet Working Protocol Numbers, or "IP addresses." Such information, when provided to law enforcement upon service of a subpoena, is critical to the timely identification of persons sending child pornography or trying to recruit a child for illicit sexual purposes."
Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg (R NH) presided at the hearing. Senators Ernest Hollings (D SC) and Barbara Mihulski (D MD) also participated.
The subcommittee also heard testimony from Ernest E. Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
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