What the Government Might Do To Limit or Destroy Internet Anonymity What if the government goes even further continuing the trend that the SafeWeb shutdown and the use of Magic Lantern together suggest?
Will the First Amendment limit what our lawmakers can do? It depends. An assault on anonymity could take a variety of forms. The government might try to create a general Internet registration requirement, with ID verification either every time someone wants to set up an account, or every time a user browses. With national identification cards still the subject of debate, the possibility that Internet users will someday be required to provide identifying information as a matter of course is far from merely dystopian. Or the government may simply choose to broadly garner user information from ISPs, through subpoenas or voluntary compliance (as it likely already did post-September 11). After all, monitoring is more effective when its very presence is secret as the government’s development of a way to install Magic Lantern unbeknownst to the user demonstrates. The government might also institute an ID check system for Internet cafes, libraries, and other places where a user can access the
