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.
your beloved pornographers
Obviously, I have a typo -- I meant "assuming ... that pornography is NOT protected speech."
Didn't Lugar-R Chairman Foreign Affairs Commt push it through in a late nite session last year attached to another bill?
The federal government is getting more and more involved in what sort of communications "the people" are allowed to participate in...
There's this law, which was struck down, and then there's the McCain/Feingold nonsense. Once the federal government gets the chance to describe what's obscene and ban it, how long do you think once leftists get back into control of the government (and don't think that it can't happen) how long will it be before the "fairness doctorine" is reinstated, and Free Republic is declared a political site in violation of Mccain/Feingold CFR, as well as being just plain and simple, obscene.
Mark
What on earth do you mean by the "nature of life"? Do you mean "human nature"? If so, say it. Certainly you are not saying that the type of regime, or the actions of the government, do not affect people. Just ask Saddam's victims. Or just ask the average American, who is lucky enough to be blessed by our system of government. Your post is to vague to be understood.
One line, talking point style rejoinders.
Character assassination.
Innuendo.
Guilt by association.
Frequently repeated platitudes.
Smugness.
Never answers a direct question.
Convoluted logic so twisted it can't be unraveled.
Self righteousness.
Attacks instead of responding.
Don't you love it how these people keep talking about us to each other, as if they need each other's approval in order to have their views validated? They come to a thread that will obviously attract the few libertarians that exist, and then become offended when anyone disagrees with their small cabal.
-- government does indeed have the right 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.
Tigers eye replies:
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.
How true.. And as we see in dino's latest at 614, he's even bought into the socialists bit about our "decaying society"..
It takes a 'controlled society' to raise a child, according to lawyers like Hillary.
BTW How can we reconcile something here. We have a government that allows assorted perverts to come into our schools and without our expressed permission teach our grade school or even high school kids about different forms of sex, to our government so all fired concerned over porn?
Um, with all do respect, when you have 20 libertarians on a thread all coming after you, it would take a professional typist to respond to all the posts. I am not a good typist, I'll admit. You keep bringing up this "statist" label, as if it has any real meaning other than a lame attempt at an insult. Get a life.
That's your mantra.
So you are in favor of a decaying society, while, in your view, only socialists are against it? Very revealing.
Are you some other type of life form? Do you belong to a society of beings not human? Do you know of any such non-human society in history?
This is the kind of evasive, disingenuous response you have been giving everyone here. My meaning was clear but you pretend it's complicated.
Name one government, one society in all of history that has succeeded in eliminating a parent's responsibility to raise their children by controlling external aspects of life.
I agree that the gov should be concerned about the perverts teaching sex ed, too.
Al Capp used to have group of cartoon characters calling themselves S.W.I.N.E., Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.
Given the number of people who have disagreed with your position on this thread (both directly and indirectly) it seems your cabal has far less drawing power.
My attempt to insult haven't been any lamer than yours. Just less frequent.
What the h*** are you talking about? Who ever said anything about governments eliminating all parental responsibility? By the way, it is not at all clear from the original post that you meant "human nature" when you referred to the "nature of life"...and if you indeed did mean human nature, then I can show you many governments that have had an impact on the way that an individual's human nature affects the people around him.
Socialists and their Libertarian comrades both want societal chaos.
Most people don'y give a hoot about the government's actions, so this thread obviously has a hugely disproportionate number of libertarians.
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