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.
commerce
n.
1. The buying and selling of goods, especially on a large scale, as between cities or nations. (See Synonyms at business.)
2. Intellectual exchange or social interaction.
3. Sexual intercourse.
Interesting. >8^)>~
Bork is an authoritarian and agrees with dino.
I enjoy Mojave's posts. Most of the statists on FR are dumbasses,
Roscoe is not a 'statist'. He's in favor of any form of socialistic control.. Fed, state, local, - prohibitions on liberty turn him on.
but at least Mojave's smart, despite my disagreeing with 75% of his views.
75% of Roscoes views have always been one line inane wisecracks.
That said, I still thik he's an AOL kid.
Juvenile, for sure..
Of course not. The founders believed in reasonable regulations by the smallest government possible.. Local governments can best regulate public aspects of porn, and, if necessary, States can reasonably regulate intra/interstate aspects.
The commerce clause issue can be argued as a limit on Federal power, but that is simply a debate about WHO controls it (state or feds), not WHETHER ANY government should control it.
Not true, in that fed & state ~abuses~ of the control power to regulate porn, - without infringing on individual liberties, - are exactly what the debate is about.
You seem to be saying that NO government should control it, including states.
Hype.. - I've seen no one here make that point. -- We're objecting about over-controls that infringe on other liberties.
I believe that pornography does great direct harm to our citizens AND to our nation.
I passed on the first try, and graduated with honors from a top 20 law school.
Your inability to 'see' the true debate about our commerce clause undermines your 'honors' credibility..
Not bragging...just refuting your infantile comment.
In a way, calling those comments 'infantile' also shows us your braggadocio.
You obviously haven't read all of the threads. There have been two debates that I've participated in on this thread:
1. Whether the commerce clause permits federal government -- as opposed to state government -- regulation of internet porn. (Some have agreed that states may regulate porn without being in violation of any Constitutional rights, but that there is no FEDERAL authority to do it. This is a respectable, although I believe incorrect, position.)
2. Whether the First Amendment to the federal constitution prohibits regulation of internet porn by feds AND STATES. (Some have made the preposterous argument that internet porn is somehow "protected speech" under the First Amendment. The necessary correlary to this is that EVEN STATES would be prohibited from regulating internet porn, at least according to the questionable (but entrenched) doctrine that says that the first amendment applies to state legislation via incorporation into the 14th.)
As opposed to the wildly stupid argument that the First only covers "political speech", along with the necessary corollary that "political speech" is somehow a meaningful or practical distinction that can be drawn. Gotcha.
2 questions for you:
1. Do you believe in the activist interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which posits that the first amendment prohibition of infringement on free speech applies to the states, even though NOTHING in the wording of the 14th Amendment says anything of the sort? Yes or No?
2. Since you are an expert on speech and can somehow divine that pictures of sexual acts is a form of "speech", can you please provide me with a correct definition of the word "speech" as used in the First Amendment?
I'll be waiting.
Unless you are running some real good filtering systems I bet you do but you don't even realize it. All it takes to get you linked is an e-mail with a picture in it LINKED to a porn site. It can be an off color cartoon you may not even think about. I've seen stuff in run of the mill political political forums linked back to such places. Now here is my point. Would you want to have to explain to Big Brother how it got there? But, but, you say you didn't do it! Well says Big Brother we have you linking here, here, here, here, here, and here.
I hope you don't mind the government monitoring your online purchases either to make certain you pay all taxes etc. That is where this is leading to and they are using porn as a rallying cause to accomplish it. Any person with two functioning brain cells {a quality lacking in about two thirds of our elected leaders} can find about any type web site they wish on the Internet simply by using www type in some keywords & add dot com. You don't need a search engine to find porn or anything else for that matter so why is the government even going there? {Hint}Because this isn't actually about porn.
If you have an argument, make it. If not, don't waste my time.
Seriously, I want to know how you would answer those questions.
See? It ain't a dirty word!
Seriously, support your own arguments or buzz off.
Did you read my replies? I know what and why they're doing it. The word porn {in any usage terms} was just to sell the idea.
I don't get it...you have time to make irrelevant insulting comments, but you don't have the time to type in two short answers to two easy questions? If I were as snippy as you are, I might say something about your lack of intelligence or reflection, but I won't.
Bye all, have a nice weekend!
If you won't take the time to address objections on their merits, you hardly have grounds for complaint when you find yourself summarily dismissed as well.
By your logic a picture of two guys raising the U.S. flag over the debris of the WTC isn't speech either and can be banned by the fedgov. A Hillary adminstration might like to do just that.
The googleporn thread lives!
You assume too much, my friend. The only "logic" I sense here is that of "speech I like is protected, and speech I don't like isn't." You have the illegitimate love child of Hugo "It isn't speech!" Black and Potter "We know it when we see it!" Stewart before you, and that's never a prescription for logic.
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