Internet privacy advocates, web entrepreneurs and business owners turned out in droves on Thursday to denounce a bill before the Hawaii Legislature that would require Internet service providers to keep a record of every website visited by subscribers for no less than two years.

Law enforcement agencies want House Bill 2288 to pass to help them prosecute cybercrimes, a troubling and growing trend in the Information Age. They say emails, text messages and the like are often deleted by ISPs and cell phone companies, effectively terminating investigations.

But ISPs, cell phone companies and privacy advocates told House Economic Revitalization and Business that the cost to retain records would hurt businesses. They also said HB 2288 could put those records at risk of hacking. Opponents said the bill would allow the government to invade privacy in an extraordinary way.

“This is Big Brother made real,” said Robert Brewer, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at the University of Hawaii and co-founder of LavaNet. “Your entire browser history, for every person in Hawaii … is at risk.”

The House committee voted to defer action on the measure, but the issue is sure to surface again. There are other cybercrime bills before the Legislature this session, and many lawmakers are sympathetic to offering greater protection to their constituents.

Still, HB 2288 may also live to be heard another day.

Committee Chair Angus McKelvey asked Honolulu prosecutors to “immediately” work with ISP companies on compromise language for legislation. Pointing out that similar legislation is being heard before the U.S. Congress, McKelvey said the Legislature would wait to see how the federal bills fare.

“We will act if Congress will not,” he said.

Consumer Protection

Rep. John Mizuno, like McKelvey a Democrat, told Civil Beat the reason he introduced HB 2288 had everything to do with protecting consumers.

One of those consumers is Rep. Kymberley Pine, a Republican. Pine made headlines last year when her email address and websites were altered without her permission.

Pine, who sits on McKelvey’s committee, spoke passionately in support of cybercrime bills at the hearing.

“A lot of people are saying there is a problem here,” she said. “We want justice for everyone. … We want (businesses) to thrive, but there are serious human rights issues going on where people are seriously being victimized by crime.”

Representatives for the Honolulu Police Department and the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorneys office said cybercrimes are difficult to investigate without cell phone records and ISP logs.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Chris Van Marter said that, while some companies retain records, others quickly delete them or after only a short while.

“By the time law enforcement gets to it, that data is gone, and that is the end of the case,” he said.

Van Marter dismissed arguments that business would have difficulty paying for more storage space or that constitutional rights would be violated.

“Law enforcement has to meet a very high threshold to retain records,” he said. “We need a court order and we need to establish for a judge probable cause.”

Treasure Trove for Hackers

Opponents of HB 2288, however, said the bill would have a chilling effect on Internet users, who expect their web use to be private.

LavaNet founder Brewer called the measure a “wild overreach” by the government in privacy.

“On a fundamental human rights level this is unthinkable,” he said. “It will be a treasure trove for hackers. In the age of WikiLeaks, you can imagine the broad swath.”

Yuka Nagashima, executive director and CEO of the High Technology Development Corporation — it promotes economic diversification through venture capital partnerships — warned that HB 2288 would undermine the Abercrombie administration’s initiative to expand broadband.

“We are trying to make this a better place for Hawaii to do biz — this will be an undue burden,” she said. “Unfortunately, this has already been caught by the national media and is making Hawaii look out of step with everyone else. SOPA and PIPA, those bills are mild compared to this, and they were struck down.”

Nagashima was referring to the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and the “PROTECT IP Act” before Congress, the same bills McKelvey referenced.

Meanwhile, Gordon Bruce, director of Honolulu’s Department of Information Technology, said the free WiFi service provided through a partnership between the city and Honolulu businesses would likely disappear if HB 2288 is passed.

“If this act would require records would have to be collected, there would be no incentive for them to have this,” Bruce said of the businesses.

Mizuno said he understood the concerns but still expressed confidence that compromise legislation could be drafted and heard this session.