A direct assault

Friends,

"A direct assault on Internet users" is what the ACLU is calling it.

Yesterday a U.S. House committee approved HR 1981, a broad new Internet snooping bill. They want to force Internet service providers to keep track of and retain their customers' information -- including your name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Demand Progress, and 25 other civil liberties and privacy groups have expressed our opposition to this legislation. Will you join us, by emailing your lawmakers today? Just click here:

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/snooping_bill/?referring_akid=.45919.DIg...

They've shamelessly dubbed it the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act." But our staunchest allies in Congress are calling it what it is -- an all-encompassing Internet snooping bill. ISPs would collect and retain your data whether or not you're accused of a crime.

CNet Reports: Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who led Democratic opposition to the bill said, ""It represents a data bank of every digital act by every American' that would 'let us find out where every single American visited Web sites."

"The bill is mislabeled," said Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the panel. "This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes."

Please join the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Consumer Federation of America, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Demand Progress, and 25 other civil liberties and privacy groups in opposing this legislation. Just click here:

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/snooping_bill/?referring_akid=.45919.DIg...

Thanks!