children

According to CNN, Republican Congressman are looking to force ISP's into keeping records for two years for all users.

This bill is horribly designed, on more than just one level.

First, it requires copious amounts of data storage. I don't think that Congressmen recognize how much data even a small network can generate. Data storage is becoming cheaper nowadays, but it's still a huge hurdle. What data should be saved? All packets? Login information? Website caches?

Two, storage equals money. You're going to add to the operating costs of not only big companies like AT&T, Verizon et all, but you're also going to reduce the ability (as if it wasn't non-existent now anyways) of a startup company.

Three, there's a great many people who use Wi-Fi who do not have it locked down with security. Will they be held liable to keep this data as well, or will it just be for those who use it commercially? The article is unclear, and it's very likely that the average person or small company will know how to store data correctly.

Fourth, the idea that I should have to give up my identity on the net is a poor one. The Internet grants anonymity, and with that, freedom. Will some people use that freedom to try to get around laws? Most certainly. But all this bill will do is force those who wish to break the law to do a slight amount of reading on how to mask your IP, how to steal Wi-Fi addresses from unsuspecting people, or find some other workaround.

If this bill goes into place, how long until the names and data get used for reasons other than their true purpose? A week or a month?

There are some good arguments for data retention by bigger companies (and they're already doing it, to some extent) but there is no need for the majority of people to store records for two years.

Promoted by Matt Moon: Bob Carroll of the Tax Foundation explains McCain's health credit better than McCain does in today's WSJ. Health care is one of those issues that the next conservative movement must provide new ideas for.

As the election hoopla crescendos, Hawaii is giving the rest of us a little preview of what health care mandates could do in the next presidency.

Barack Obama's only mandate is that all children have health insurance. Hawaii tried to accomplish this through its government, and sadly, revealed the problems.

Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, writes in the New York Post:

"Hawaii just had a vivid lesson in health-care economics, learning that if you offer people insurance for free - surprise, surprise - they'll quickly drop other coverage to enroll.

"As a result, Hawaii is ending the only state universal child health-care program in the country after just seven months.

"The program, called the Keiki (Child) Care Plan, was designed to provide coverage to children whose parents can't afford private insurance but who make too much to qualify for other public programs (such as Medicaid and Hawaii's State Children's Health Insurance Program). Keiki Care was free for these gap kids, except for a $7 office-visit fee.

"But then state officials found that families were dropping private coverage to enroll their children in the plan. 'People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,' said Dr. Kenny Fink of Hawaii's Department of Human Services."

A lesson in human nature and government we can't soon forget.