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.
See? You fit the profile perfectly.
Do you sell incense at the airport?
Okay. Your right. There are one. Now answer my questions.
So asinine. Does Rove not talk to Gonzo? The one piece of "evidence" the Dems wanted was "proof" that the Patriot Act would be used to spy on Americans. What kind of idiotic and tone deaf timing is this, W?! Halloooo?>
Their own websites are dead so they crawl here.
The Internet is interstate.
If it's left to the government, then you were trusting Bill Clinton to protect kids from porn for 8 years?
But you didn't answer the question and tell me which one eliminated the negative aspects of life. Every government/society can be said to influence the lives of the people in it. That doesn't say anything. Once again you wouldn't answer a direct question.
LOL. Your condescending, know-it-all attitude just isn't working. This is how liberals debate when they're getting their behinds kicked on a subject - they immediately try to project a smug, smarmy tone, and hope that the other party loses its temper. Sorry, it ain't working. You're simply wrong on this topic.
That statement makes no sense at all.
Congress is lending a hand.
Most people don't care about the government's actions in this Google matter. The attracts libertarians, because only they are offended. Thus, this thread is disproportionately libertarian.
You resemble your remarks.
Ask me a coherent question, and I will answer it.
How does obtaining this information from Google "help"?
Thanks but no thanks. Being an elitist busybody just isn't one of my traits.
"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."
As a parent {mine are grown now} I could control what they saw in my home. It was my responsibility to limit their access to harmful subject matter. But then again I remember as a teenager some friends having the unofficial library hidden in the school library. That was early 1970's in smalltown USA.
You can't stop kids from seeing porn. Sorry folks but kids will be kids and it is a natural curiosity of growing up starting with playing doctor. BUT you can teach kids where sex belongs and help give them a moral foundation to guide them. That IMO is the answer. Don't look for your government to stop it. Porn? Heck it's even on the open airwaves. Anybody with cable tv or in some places an antenna can find it late at night.
Don't get me wrong I think kiddie porn pushers should be strung up and hung. The definition being sites that show kids in compromised circumstances and I think we all know what I'm saying here. When a site is found and nothing but that is on it yea you have a felon.
The ISP's policing their own customers TOS and shutting the site down & reporting them is perhaps one of the most effective means. No body wants kiddie porn but that as it has been pointed out is not the intent of this anyway. There are far more effective ways to close such sites down without our government invading our privacy and knowing our surfing habits.
Think about this as well. This program could be used as a means to determine ones wishing to overthrow the government as some law enforcement agency defines. A person being a political junkie browses onto a fringe site looking to see what the kooks are saying is then marked as having been there. It's bordering on guilty until proven innocent.
I don't think there is any among this discussion though of who if by chance stumbled onto a KP site would not at least tell the ISP what's going on.
So "lending a hand" refers to the government seeking to help itself in this effort. Not parents. Got it.
Thank you, I was raised to always admit when wrong, and it was very big of you to post such a compliment to me.
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