A few thoughts, in no particular order, wrt foregoing comments:

1. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s take is here; the Center for Democracy and Technology’s, here. They are neither pleased nor reassured.

2. Fourth Amendment protections like court-ordered search warrants are not as robust as they used to be: Destroying Hard Drive Leads to Conviction for Obstructing Federal Investigation…a child pornography suspect destroyed his hard drive in response to learning of the investigation. No search warrant was issued; no prosecution for child porn was initiated.

3. The conviction described in the link above was obtained by invoking the Sarbanes-Oxley Law. This legislation, supposedly designed to deter financial fraud, was “creatively” adapted to a child porn prosecution. I assume—it goes without saying, afaic—that special interests have deliberately made H.R. 1981 extensible in ways that are not superficially apparent.

4. Per the previous remark, unless the bill explicitly restricts itself to child porn in the text, its provisions apply across the board. Naming the bill the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 is, IMO, a veiled threat to undecided Representatives. “Representative ______ opposed efforts to protect our children from Internet pornographers.”

5. Here is a letter to Congress from a number of civil-liberties organizations, including the ACLU. Among other things, it expressly addresses the foregoing point: Contrary to the title of the legislation, there (is) nothing in the bill that would limit the use of these records to child exploitation cases.

6. IMO this rant about Microsoft’s recent call for an “Internet Driver’s License” serves to put H.R. 1981 in context.