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Provisions of a child pornography bill that would require Internet service providers to retain certain information on its users for 18 months sparked heated debate at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing July 12, in part because of concerns that additional data retention would increase privacy concerns and pose security risks.
H.R. 1981, the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, would require ISPs to retain information on the Internet protocol addresses used by their customers for 18 months. At a hearing of the Judiciary Committee's crime, terrorism, and homeland security subcommittee, committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R., Texas) cited statistics about the number of children victimized and the need for law enforcement officials to get access to IP addresses of perpetrators.
"Often, the only way to identify a pedophile who operates a website or exchanges child pornography images with other pedophiles is by an Internet protocol address," said Chairman Smith, who authored the bill.
"Law enforcement officials must obtain a subpoena and then request from the Internet service provider the name and address of the user of the IP address," Rep. Smith said. "Unfortunately,...