Gonzales: Web record retention to discourage child porn

America's Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales feels that the biggest obstacle in discouraging child pornography is a lack of customer records from Internet service providers, so he told a Senate panel that Congress should require Internet providers to preserve customer records, asserting that prosecutors need them to fight child pornography.

Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller held meetings with several Internet providers, including Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Comcast Corp., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. this summer, where the Justice Department officials asserted that customer records would help them investigate child pornography cases.

The law enforcement officials have given an indication to the companies that the customer records should be retained by them for as long as two years. "We have to find a way for Internet service providers to retain information for a period of time so we can go back with a legal process to get them," said Gonzales.

Some company executives argued that the legislation might be excessively interfering and invade on customers' privacy rights.

Gonzales acknowledged such concerns over privacy of customers but said that the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great. “This is a problem that requires federal legislation," Gonzales told the Senate Banking Committee. "We need information. Information helps us makes cases."

"We respect civil liberties, but we have to harmonize this so we can get more information," he said.

Some Internet service provider executives and civil liberties groups have been alarmed after this subject was raised. Earlier this year Google was taken to court by the Justice Department to turn over information on customer searches. Verizon and other telephone companies were allegedly working with the government to provide information without search warrants on subscriber calling records and were sued by the Civil liberties groups for the same.