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.
Good points and reasonable questions. It shows just how complicated it can get and how easy for that matter a person could be set up as well.
An excellent point, which raises another concern. From my post#336:
...will the laws be applied with the frivolity typical of government appendages, wielded as a cudgel by politicians against their political opponents or as a spectacle to distract from their own moral deficiencies?
I suspect they will be applied as such with great frequency in situations like the hypothetical cited in your post.
You probably couldn't find one in twenty FReepers who could tell what the Law of the Sea Treaty is.
But - sex is more fun.
C) How would you determine what is porn and what isn't?
What is Google afraid of?
You really should get a refresher course on Constitutional principles. - Or read some good books.
I highly recommend Barnett's book on 'A Presumption of Liberty'...
Again, there are two issues: 1. Do pictures of two libertarian fellas boning each other fall under the category of "protected speech" Do you have a right to prohibit their possession of such filthy pictures?
Ask your fellow lawyers on the USSC, who have said you do not.
such that the silly SCOTUS-manufactured incorporation doctrine prevents state governments from regulating the pictures as they see fit?
The 14th protects our rights to life liberty or property, - and even filthy pictures are property. -- States can reasonably regulate public aspects of dealing in such property, but they can't prohibit possession, as you well know.
you keep mentioning that states may impose "reasonable" restrictions on the public aspects of pornography...but this is irrelevant to the issue of whether a state may constitutionally take ANY means to stop the public trafficing of pornographic images.
How dense. -- 'Reasonable' means that States are Constitutionally empowered to regulate, as long as individual rights are not infringed by the regulations.
The issue is simply whether individuals have the constitutionally-protected right to display [possess] pornography,
That issue has been resolved, - individual rights won with adoption of our BoR's in 1791
regardless of whether the state's action is "reasonable".
A State's laws must be 'reasonable' to be Constitutional.
2. If they do not, then does the federal government have the power, via the commerce clause, to regulate as they see fit, or is it solely a state power.
No level of government in our republic has the power to enact fiat prohibitions that infringe on our rights to life liberty or property. Get it?
-- government does indeed have the right[power] to "enact fiat prohibitions" of many types of property, such as narcotics.
Cite your support. -- No such 'power to arbitrarily prohibit' is delegated to any levels of government in any of our Constitutions. Such a power is inherently repugnant to our "Republican Form of Government".
BTW, your 'slip' about government "rights" is very telling. Very unprofessional.
That argument sounds very NAMBLA.
You send porn to and make sexual solicitations towards a minor in an AOL chat room. When he actually turns out to be an undercover FBI agent, who's parents are you going to blame in your arguments to the jury?
A) Why is it a good idea? Why is it better to handle this matter on a national rather than a local level?
ANSWER: Because the local level has left a huge void in regulating, and because jurisdictionally, you have a porn producer in one state sending the smut into another. Any time that there is a need for uniform coordination, I believe the feds have a proper role.
B) I hate to dredge up Klintonian sophistry, but who would be the controlling legal authority? Would we create a cabinet level porn czar? Would we set up some agency? Would the DOJ handle it through civil actions? Would we have a congressional committee decide for us what constitutes indecency?
ANSWER: Easy to know when it is seen, but any non-medical use of these pictures is porn.
C) How would you determine what is porn and what isn't? Surely the central panel of Garden of Earthly Delights by Heironymous Bosch would qualify as indecent, as would the works of the Marquis de Sade and the Roman poet Martial. If educational pictures of gynecological exams were posted on a fetish site would they qualify as porn? Would you just regulate graphical content, or literary as well? If it's only graphical content you want to place limits on, where will you draw the line? Bestiality? Sodomy? Mere penetration? Nude pictures? Victoria's Secret catalogs?
ANSWER: The old dredged up argument "it's impossible to determine" is not a reason that it should not be regulated. I would say Victoria Secret is OK, if a fetish site uses pictures to arouse, that would fit, literary works can cross the line etc...I am just talking about access here: why not make it necessary to provide proof that you are an adult, like you do to buy alcohol?
Under yor theory, 99% of all laws should be thrown out because the courts have to work to interpret the same.
D) Due to the international nature of internet communications, how do plan to enforce your regulations with regard to foreign operators? Would one run afoul of the law by opening a spam email containing illicit material? Will we invade foreign countries to shut down pornographers?
ANSWER: This same issue arises in other contexts, once it crosses our borders, we can stop it, like a dope smuggler...
E) What will the penalties be? Are you going to send people to prison? If so, which ones? The pornographers themselves, or anybody who stumbles across an obscene web page? How about 3rd party hosting?
ANSWER: Just the pornographers would be regulated. The users need other sorts of help....
F) To what lengths will you go from an executive standpoint? Will RICO be used to enforce these laws? How about the Patriot Act?
ANSWER: To whatever lengths it takes, it is as damaging to a society as drugs are, so probably the same effort....
Don't pretend you have Constitutional issues that you're just setting aside. There are none.
Oh yeah, you're right...it's about protecting children from pornography, not child porn in of itself. Sorry...been busy so I just skimmed the article and jumped in.
OK, you know what LOST is and you probably know that the issue presented in this article, that is truly disturbing, has nothing to do with sex or porn.
I still stand by my estimate that only 1-in-20 FReepers can tell you what LOST is about and, judging by this thread, maybe 3-in-20 FReepers appreciate that getting a subpoena to datamine on false premises has far bigger ramifications than deciding which nekkid pics are bad or good and what the Constitution allows the gov to do about it.
Regardless of my own parenting skills, why should I not be concerned about raising my child in a society where such trash is permissive and rampant? I suppose I could lock my child in the house and never let him go to school or to the library, or never let him have any friends ... but a decaying society is not a place that is conducive to a happy childhood or a happy adulthood.
Unprofessional? I disagree. This is just what they are being taught now. The Marxists haven't taken over "public education" just to let it fall by the wayside in our universities. Least of all law schools.
So why would anybody expect their nonpersonal searches to protected? Which Constitutional Amendment protects individuals from reading Google's privacy policy? It's not in the UN's Law of the Sea Treaty, is it?
If that's what you have to do to keep your uncontrollable brat out of trouble. If that's how he/she/they are it's no one elses fault but yours. Life has always included the good and bad from time immemorial. No government has ever changed the nature of life. Ever!
I heard someone the other day saying that this is no different than the NSA's monitoring of calls.
What they seem to be missing is the fact that the NSA monitoring communications is based on evidence picked up, linking one or both with terrorists. In this case, the justice dept is going on a fishing expedition: "Let's start looking through the records and see if we can find anything illegal..." They have no evidence that any crime has been committed, no named victims, and no suspects.
Mark
How nice of you to catch up on your reading comprehension before you throw out some more nasty insults. Very big of you.
LOL, you are funny. You are either dense as a rock, or you are intentionally and repeatedly misrepresenting what I have written. You keep bringing up this "reasonable" crap, when I have had no interest in the details of what you consider to be "reasonable" or not. Its not the point. I am only interested in, first, the issue of whether individuals have a right -- ANY right -- to display raunchy pornography to the public. If they do not have such a right, then the "reasonableness" is irrelevant. Your response about the original bill of rights protecting the right to pornography is simply laughable, although it is also frightening because it is also held by the most liberal judges, who actually do have some power. Second, I'm interested in whether (assuming, as anyone with common sense must, that pornography is "protected speech"), does the Federal government have the right to regulate pornography as they see fit pursuant to the commerce clause? This is a closer issue, but I think it is clear that internet porn falls under the definition of interstate commerce as that term was originally intended.
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