Europe Expected to Require Keeping of Phone-Call Data - New York Times

Europe Expected to Require Keeping of Phone-Call Data - New York Times:

Can America be next? My guess is that in America we already keep these records. For what period, I'm not certain.

"The version of the law that Parliament will vote on Wednesday was written by Britain. It would require phone companies to keep information like the time of phone calls or fax transmissions, the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls and the duration of the calls for at least two years. Details of e-mail activity would have to be stored for a minimum of six months.

Under existing Europe-wide data protection laws, companies are permitted to store this information only as long as it is needed for billing purposes, usually a month or two.

Representatives of fixed-line and mobile phone companies, Internet service providers and cable companies have joined forces to try to persuade Parliament to vote against the law.

They say it would be ineffective in tracking terrorists' e-mail communications because suspects could simply sign up with e-mail providers based outside Europe. Storing all e-mail, including spam, would not help catch terrorists, they say, but it might encourage Europeans to move their e-mail accounts to a non-European service provider.

The industry's main worry, however, is cost. It estimates that telecommunications companies would have to store 50 times the data they do now. There is no provision under the draft law to compensate phone companies and Internet providers."