Posted on 01/19/2006 10:36:33 AM PST by 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.
And the Justice Department has chosen to seek a subpoena.
And the Supremes will tell them to shove the subpoena up their je ne sais quoi.
Finger slip :)
As in turn it loose into the ether, never to be seen again.
That's more applicable to Google. I doubt the general public is as concerned with protecting the kiddie porn industry.
As in "Cry Havoc, and Loose the Dogs of War" on the kiddie porn industry.
The very fact that the government is claiming it is unsatisfied with having Microsoft and America Online's data (you have still to document American Online) means they think Google has something special. Without probable cause for that suspicion, their fishing expedition on Google has even less than no legs.
Haw haw haw you wish the gummint had the power to root through private databases on such a fishing trip. It doesn't, thank the Framers of the Constitution.
The general public won't see that the precedent set with blaring headlines undser a bloody flag in this case will establish a quiet routine of ever more invasion in all cases from then on.
And the odd thing is, this whole dustup is over the effectiveness of filtering software. It is a no brainer for filtering software to intercept virtually all attempts at finding porn at any of the major search engines. The gummint will lose on the merits if they haven't already lost in two or three other ways.
I glanced the thread and some are cheering this on. It take it most are not too savvy on how and when unwanted items can find their way on your computer or even your ISP's record. I would say it could be found on over 75% of the persons posting on this thread. Got Yahoo mailbox? Open an e-mail and gotcha. It is likely to happen on OE as well. A friend sends a joke with a picture linked to an adult site gotcha.
Why would the government stop with search engine data records when ISP records reveal far more? It sounds like one of two things going on. Either another way to be the All SEEING EYE which many law enforcement agencies have become with such things as light cams, etc. Or this who thing is to feed a political friend a very valuable government contract for providing research. Either way it stinks. There are better and more efficient ways to catch Kiddie Porn site owners.
As it has been pointed out - they are not looking for kiddie porn, they are looking for kiddie consumers of porn - in data that cannot contain it. Therefore the real purpose is something else. That purpose appears to be to confuse those two issues in your mind in order to get a precedent that would give government quiet access to all databases in the country, every bank, every doctor, none could refuse if Google loses. Thankfully they have the money and the will to fight it for us. Congratulations on being duped.
Quite so -- how do they know whether the party that searched for both "Mary had a little lamb" and, say, "Hot dirty studs" isn't a grown up weirdo, rather than a kid? Or even two different computers that got the same dynamic IP in succession? This isn't the Grown Up Weirdo Online Protection Act under discussion.
Google is going to shove this back down the gummint's throat, big time.
Right. The only way to shut Kiddie Porn down is to shut down the website. The only logical way to find the website seems to me is to get off their lazy minds and do random site surfing. I don't think the motive is what they would want all to believe either. This is simply posturing for setting precedent to end privacy in all aspects of a persons life in the name of whatever cause sells at the time.
a grown up weirdo, rather than a kid? Or even two different computers that got the same dynamic IP in succession?
Or for that matter, Dad has the unlock key to the filtering software and is looking for hotter stuff than Junior, who used the same box, has access to?
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