Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, voiced his opposition to H.R. 1981, the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, which would go too far in government invasion of the privacy of law-abiding citizens amidst dragnet efforts to catch consumers of child pornography.  Instead, he pushed for additional law enforcement resources to combat child pornography.

The following is the text of Nadler’s opening statement at a Judiciary Committee markup of the bill:

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I asked for time to explain why I can’t support this bill, H.R. 1981. 

“Like all Americans, I am very concerned about the explosion of child pornography on the Internet.  Technology is making this heinous crime easier to commit and harder to detect.  Innocent children are at risk, and we ought to make sure we are doing what we can to protect them.

“Unfortunately, the bill before us goes way beyond child pornography.  It would impose a federal government mandate that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) keep Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of all Internet users for 18 months.  This information would allow someone to find out wherever anyone went on the Internet – even if most of us were doing nothing wrong.  Just to catch some bad actors, the federal government should not require that such private information be kept on all Internet users.  Normally, in law enforcement, we target those suspected of a crime and do not require records be kept for everyone just in case they might be useful down the road – that typical policy should be our policy here as well.

“Moreover, by requiring that records of everyone be kept, we are putting innocent people at risk.  Since the requirement to keep records is not limited to those relevant to protecting children, all data is subject to access.  Law enforcement may unfairly target those who have what are considered to be dissenting political views, for example.  And IP addresses may fall into the wrong hands – individuals may have their records targeted, or there could be broad data breaches affecting tens of thousands of people.  Just in the last few weeks, we all saw the major phone hacking scandal involving News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch – the more data we keep, the more likely it is we will have more of these intrusions.  Such breaches could lead to significant harm, such as identify theft or domestic violence. 

“In addition to these problems with the bill, it is likely that there are better ways to improve our efforts to fight child pornography.  We have no real evidence as to how often a federal government 18-month data retention requirement would help law enforcement in child pornography cases.  Our best guess is that it would not make much difference.  For example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last March that the Task Forces on Internet Crimes Against Children felt they already were able to obtain the information they needed.  

“What we do know is that a huge problem already exists because of the increased volume of electronic information and the demand for analysis of that information in child exploitation cases.  According to the GAO, ‘forensic resources available to review digital evidence in support of investigations and prosecutions of online child pornography crime are scarce relative to the demand for such services.’  The inability to quickly analyze such information ‘may delay and, in some cases, hinder investigations and prosecutions of offenders.’

“In other words, the problem in dealing with child pornography on the Internet is not a lack of adequate information – it is the lack of sufficient resources to analyze, and thus utilize, the voluminous information already collected.  Providing law enforcement with the resources it needs to analyze the information it already obtains will make a real difference in protecting children.  I urge Members to keep this in mind as some in Congress talk nonstop about cutting government to the bone.  Ensuring sufficient resources ought to be our approach, as opposed to a bill like H.R. 1981, for which the benefits are unknown and the risks to privacy are great.

“A federal government mandate to retain personal data on millions of innocent people carries real risks and sends the wrong message as to who it should require information be kept on.  A number of privacy and consumer organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumer Federation of America, and Electronic Privacy Information Center, have expressed similar concerns in a letter to Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Conyers in opposing the bill.  I think we ought to take these concerns seriously and focus our energy on other ways to combat the problem of child pornography on the Internet. Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.”

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