Feds Seek Google Records in Porn Probe

AP Via Yahoo ^ | 2006-01-19

[flashbunny]

The Bush administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google Inc. for details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.

Google has refused to comply with the subpoena, issued last year, for a broad range of material from its databases, including a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period, lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department said in papers filed Wednesday in federal court in San Jose.

Privacy advocates have been increasingly scrutinizing Google's practices as the company expands its offerings to include e-mail, driving directions, photo-sharing, instant messaging and Web journals.

Although Google pledges to protect personal information, the company's privacy policy says it complies with legal and government requests. Google also has no stated guidelines on how long it keeps data, leading critics to warn that retention is potentially forever given cheap storage costs.

The government contends it needs the data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches as part of an effort to revive an Internet child protection law that was struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court on free-speech grounds.

The 1998 Child Online Protection Act would have required adults to use access codes or other ways of registering before they could see objectionable material online, and it would have punished violators with fines up to $50,000 or jail time. The high court ruled that technology such as filtering software may better protect children.

The matter is now before a federal court in Pennsylvania, and the government wants the Google data to help argue that the law is more effective than software in protecting children from porn.

The Mountain View-based company told The San Jose Mercury News that it opposes releasing the information because it would violate the privacy rights of its users and would reveal company trade secrets.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government's efforts "vigorously."

"Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching," Wong said.

[Antoninus]

LOL -- you've just cited yet another example of the failure and incompetence of government in these matters.

I don't think so. Sodomy is now a civil right, thanks to the Sandra Gay O'Connor's flip-flop on the issuse. Jefferson's understanding was adopted by most other states and stood for 200 years. During that period, homosexuals were not in our schools teaching our children that sodomy was a good thing. The same can not be said today.

The making of sodomy a civil right was an example of government failure. The bitter fruits of that decision have yet to ripen and rot.

[longshadow]

ABSTAINER, n., A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Priceless.

[rattrap]

"Hi there, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Are they any dusty old Playboys or Hustlers in your attic that a child may be able to access? If so, I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

[Antoninus]

Yeah, but that power just tempts you, doesn't it? I mean, the Dems may have created all that power under the Commerce Clause to spawn the New Deal, but you'd be using it for a greater good, wouldn't you?

Tempt nothing. We stated at 0 and the Democrats used judicial activism to get us to +100. It's going to take conservative judicial activism just to get us back to 0. To claim that conservatives shouldn't use judicial activism now is to accept the +100 status quo.

No thank you. You fight fire with fire, or else you admit defeat.

[Antoninus]

You sir, are a STATIST.

Keep clinging to your porn and you'll find out what a real statist is in short order, I'm afraid.

[steve-b]

So, what's your ring size?

[Paul_Denton]

National defense is the responsibility of the men and women who sign up and join the Armed forces. Keeping kids away from porn is the responsibility of the Parent. Two very different things. To let the government censor brings us one step closer to China.

[steve-b]

What it takes is to strip the government of its illegal powers.

[antiRepublicrat]

You've installed the proper functions to prevent them from access and that is your right.

Not prevent, monitor. The only way to prevent is to completely lock them off from the Internet, but then they wouldn't have learned their bounds for when they're outside of my control.

Quick and easy example: Parent installs blocking software, kid learns to clear his browser history/cache/cookies, he has a friend set up a proxy and creates an encrypted tunnel there to get his 'net porn from home. It's easy, and the software is available free online. You'll only know if you're actually watching your kid or notice all that strange port 22 traffic on the router.

[flashbunny]

yeah, that free speech thing was expressly limited to the things you and you alone care about.

[Paul_Denton]

China outlaws porn? Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Well no one is stopping you from moving there.

[TigersEye]

...its about commerce between two computer screens in separate states.

So now 'commerce' is synonymous with 'communication?' I guess that means the NSA (and every other alphabet agency) is free to wiretap everyone.

[antiRepublicrat]

Porn is not protected by the Constitution. Guns are.

They are? Cool. Now I can get that real FN P90 I've been wanting, and the correct ammo to go with it.

[dirtboy]

I was hoping someone would post that.

Too many conservatives want to to put on the ring instead try and destroy it.

Of course, it was probably easier to get past the ringwraiths than the existing SCOTUS judges, except for Thomas.

[Arthalion]

Such naivety. The E. European sex slave trade provides "consenting" models, too.

No doubt there's some, but I've never heard anything indicating that it's happening in any great numbers. Typically, a set of nude photographs of an attractive model might make a website a few hundred bucks over its existence (which is why porn sites have a LOT of women). For the time involved, that's chump change in an industry that can generate hundreds of dollars per day per girl.

Plus you have the exposure factor. If you kidnap a girl and turn her into a sex slave, and then publish her photo on the Internet, you're just creating an evidence trail for investigators to follow. While I'm sure these slavers aren't real bright, you'd have to be incredibly stupid to try something like that.