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Countdown's Worst Persons for May 18, 2009 with winner Bill O'Reilly who suddenly doesn't like the idea of citizens being ambushed by people with cameras. Runners up were Harold Jackson for hiring John Yoo to write a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Sean Hannity for comparing President Obama replacing US Attorney's to Bush's controversial firings.

Chalk this up as forcing you to become big brother:

Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations.

The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.

"While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. "Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level."

Joining Cornyn was Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let "law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals."

Two bills have been introduced so far--S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act," or Internet Safety Act.

So in essence, if you have a wireless router in your home then you would be required to log all access to that router and keep those logs for two years. Why? Because your neighbor might do something bad and use your internet connection to do it.

What has me scratching my head is the situation of failure. What if my $50 Linksys decides to bite the dust after one year? Do I have to store that router for another year to comply with this law?

How about people who have routers without logging, or that has very limited logging that might only keep X number of records and couldn’t possibly store the data for two years? Will these people have to go out and by new routers now?

This legislation will really cause outcries from privacy advocates. Just the idea that some people may have to go out and buy new hardware simply to become a new “big brother” for our government is very troubling.

Because now ISPs have agreed to spy for them:

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.

The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.
[us album sales]

Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.

Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.

The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones.

The federal government can invade every aspect of my life as long as they keep me safe from those drug-running Mexicans.

WaPo reported Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security is building a database that tracks every every American citizen's border crossings and catalogs the data for as long as 15 years, with little to no privacy measures in place to prevent abuse.

The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used in criminal and intelligence investigations.

When Wolf Blitzer asks CNN's Resident Xenophobe, Lou Dobbs, for his opinion, the pseudo-intellectual said this story is troublesome not because of the invasion of privacy issues it raises, but rater because those damn illegals are still sneaking into the country with their horrific (i.e. non-existent) diseases and contraband.

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"The State Department has been tracking what's happening with our passports for years and years and years. There seems to be some dust-up here. The real story to me is that all of this concern about tracking citizens going about their lawful activities entering and exiting this country, while they have done nothing at the DHS to shut down the flow of illegals aliens across our borders, potential terrorists, and still Mexico, for example, is the primary source for methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine and marijuana into this country... and it's not being stopped!!!"

Is there no issue out there that this hack won't exploit in order to bash illegal immigrants?

The State Department certainly hasn't been tracking border crossings "for years and years and years," and keeping that information in a central computer for 15 years with no oversight provisions.

The fact that we're becoming a bona fide surveillance state doesn't bother Lou Dobbs. All he cares about is twisting a story in order to rail against his favorite target. He's always sure to slip in his talking points, too, even if they're bogus.