How much do I track thee? Let me count the ways.

With a GPS-equipped smart phone in your pocket, you drive to work in downtown Canton; click. You zip by a traffic camera along I-77; click. You exit the highway, and pass a city crime control camera; click. You fill up at a gas station, where a security camera catches you paying with a credit card at the pump; click and click. Then, a quick stop at the ATM; click. You arrive in the office parking lot, where a security camera records you; click. You swipe a key card to enter the building; click.

Finally, out of the public eye.

Until that is, you log on to your computer.

Click, click, click …

“We have this problem where technology is growing so much faster than the law,” explained Sharon Bradford Franklin, senior counsel at The Constitution Project, a non-profit think tank in Washington D.C. “The government has been interpreting statutes … based on things no one could have imagined at the time.”

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I remember when SOPA was on the table and all these websites had their pages blacked out. Hell, even my page was blacked out. We all joined together in solidarity.

Today, unfortunately, the same is not true with CISPA.

It turns out that the SOPA black-out protest was nothing other than people representing what they THOUGHT was their own rights. Instead, what these individuals were representing were the rights of the businesses effected by the legislation.

Now, with CISPA, these companies seek to benefit from relaxed regulation and extended privileges on what they can and cannot do with your personal information. Do you hear of them speaking out, blacking out their websites, donating money to stop CISPA? Hell no, you don’t. They want it to pass! The same companies that blacked out their webpages (including Tumblr) are now looking to benefit from CISPA. Not only is this a reminder that the government doesn’t give a shit about you, but that neither do the companies involved, which are far too many to list.

While you people are reblogging stupid photos of cats and not writing your officials, not protesting (even if that means by yourself), not donating money, your privacy on the internet is about to be swept out from under you and the internet will be turned into a tool for the police state, larger than it ever has been.

I just want you to do whatever is in your power to do. Call your radio stations. Post your opinions about it on message boards. Email your social networking services asking them to stand against it. Post flyers on windshields. Write the damn president if you have to. Contact everyone you think would make a helpful partner.

This apathy is killing our society. It’s sad that political activists have to make up for the disinterest of millions who are effected by legislation.

One of the bills currently meeting resistance, after it failed to pass last year, is the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Despite public protests the bill passed the House last week, and it’s now on its way to a Senate vote.

As the title suggests the main goal of the bill is to deal with “cybersecurity,” but with a lack of definition as to what that actually entails, this term is also one of its major weaknesses.

In short, CISPA would allow companies to spy on Internet users and collect and share this data with third-party companies or Government agencies. As long as the company states that these privacy violations are needed to protect against “cybersecurity” threats, they are immune from civil and criminal liabilities.

Critics of the bill point out that it would allow companies to spy on Internet users, and with flexible definitions of cybersecurity it could potentially be used to monitor the download habits of Internet subscribers.

A wide variety of citizen rights groups are continuing with anti-CISPA actions to prevent the bill from becoming law. Starting off today, Anonymous is holding a CISPA blackout with a few hundred websites participating. Undoubtedly other protests will make headlines in the weeks to come.

In light of the above, we thought that it would be interesting to turn the tables on some of the pro-CISPA forces. How would they like it if their download habits ended up exposed? And what if everyone could see their Google searches or the websites they visit?

As it turns out, no CISPA is needed to do the above. With help from BitTorrent monitoring company Scaneye and the privacy invasive ExtremeTracking service we found plenty of information to expose.

The House

Let’s begin the search with the House of Representatives, who voted in favor of CISPA. Data from public BitTorrent trackers shows dozens of House IP-addresses linked to pirated content. Below is a small selection of the alleged downloads we found.

Interestingly, no more downloads were recorded after November last year. While Scaneye only covers a small percentage of all BitTorrent downloads, the lack of hits may be the result of a new anti-P2P policy which also blocked Spotify on the Hill.

Aside from BitTorrent data it’s also possible to search for the browsing history of House staff. Through ExtremeTracking alone we found hundreds of hits, showing browser versions, screen resolutions, visited websites and search queries. To highlight one, here’s a House IP-address searching for an adult video site.

House IPs linked to piracy

The Senate

Next up is the U.S. Senate who will soon have to decide on the fate of the cybersecurity bill.

The Senate results mimic the House findings. Again there are plenty of employees who allegedly downloaded copyright material. Copies of recent TV-shows and movies are relatively popular.

The Senate’s browsing habits also reveal some information, and show that articles about Wikileaks revelations are on the public reading list.

Senate IPs linked to piracy

The CIA

Finally we took a look at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), one of the organizations which will use CISPA information. Gathering intelligence on the CIA is not as hard as it sounds, since their employees use public facing IP-addresses that can be directly linked to the agency.

Again, the BitTorrent tracker data mostly turned up pirated video content that were allegedly downloaded at the CIA, with some titles nicely fitting agency’s niche. Unlike at the congressional offices, we also saw some more recent hits.

Looking at their browsing data we found only a few hits for the CIA via ExtremeTracking. However, this does include a referral from a video store selling rather perverted material.

CIA IPs linked to piracy

The above is of course no argument against CISPA. Instead, it shows how much sensitive data is already out there. The question is, do we really want companies to have the ability to spy even more?

For those who want to learn more about CISPA and what action can be taken to stop it, FFTF and EFF are required further reading.

Finally, a word of advice to anyone who doesn’t want their private browsing and download habits out in the open, including Government workers. Get a VPN while you still can, or stop using the Internet altogether.

“Activists and Internet users protesting the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act — a cybersecurity bill that passed the House of Representatives Thursday — have spun the battle as big business interests versus the privacy of individual citizens. If lobbying dollars are anything to go by, they’re right: Pro-CISPA businesses and interests have spent 140 times more money on lobbying than anti-CISPA interests, according to the Sunlight Foundation.”*

CISPA passed overwhelmingly in the house, despite its promise to allow corporations and the government access to your private data, completely unchecked. It’s no wonder after seeing how much money was poured into lobbying for the invasive bill, and who stands to profit.