Feds Seek Google Records in Porn Probe

AP Via Yahoo ^ | 2006-01-19

[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.

[Mojave]

that up above is the 3rd Circuit decision after remand, from 2003.

Which refers to evidence and fact findings from 2000.

Poor you.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Refers to the remand in 2003, also - hence the present tense. Read for content, eh?

[Senator Bedfellow]

You have mail.

[Mojave]

Refers to the remand in 2003, also - hence the present tense. Read for content, eh?

Still waiting for any post-Ashcroft evidenciary hearings and fact finding done by the 3rd. Did you forget the falsehood you're trying unsuccessfully to defend?

[Senator Bedfellow]

One would think that if the government presented evidence of the efficacy of filters, it would be to challenge the findings of fact, which went against them previously.

"As we recited earlier, the Government did not, and does not, contend that the findings are clearly erroneous."

Of course, you could always go post the relevant sections of the government's briefs, and just blow me right out of the water by making a prima facie case of your own, showing where they presented said evidence before. But you won't do that, because it isn't there. So instead you'll just pull your same stupid routine of beating some minor point to death. Go play with yourself now - I'm done here. You can have the last word, which I have no doubt you will use to declare victory.

[Mojave]

So if that's the case, why, after SCOTUS made their decision based partly on that premise, did the government still fail to introduce evidence of the ineffectiveness of filters on remand?

When did the 3rd hold evidentiary hearings?

[crickets]

[TigersEye]

Your posts are truly outstanding. Thank you for doing such a good job of cutting through the fog and getting to the bottom line. This isn't about porn, it isn't about "the chirren" and it isn't even particularly about the internet. Again, thank you for your clarity and insight.

[tpaine]

Don Joe:

Fox News just had their "Legal Consultant" Craig Mitnick on, live, explaining the Google situation.

He calmly, rationally, soooooooooothingly, explained how the Internet is like a global roadway, and, just like on the road, you should need a license, and everywhere you go, your license is on display, you should likewise be required to be "tagged" to be on the Internet "roadway", so that the "police" can see where you are, and who you are.
He explained how it was only reasonable to require the travels of everyone to be tracked, logged, stored, so that if they are found in a bad location, the police can pull them over and ask what they're doing.

Senator Bedfellow wrote, in an attempt to explain the above to mojave:

Of course, you could always go post the relevant sections of the government's briefs, and just blow me right out of the water --
-- But you won't do that, because it isn't there.
-- So instead you'll just pull your same stupid routine of beating some minor point to death.

Mojave is, in a way, the Craig Mitnick of FR.
He has a mission, -- to explain how it is only reasonable to require that everyone bow to the wiil of the majority..

[af_vet_rr]

What it is about is giving "the camel" a good noseload of inside-the-tent air.

It's what the lefties love to call "A good first step" every time they tighten the noose on the Constitution. It's a nice precedent. "Nice", if you're "The State", looking to... looking to look.

I guarantee you that after examining those billions of URLs, we will be informed that they simply must be given the IP and cookie info, because otherwise, we won't be "safe". ("We found some... questionable material! And it may have been seen by... children! So, we must have the IP data, so that we can find out for certain whether or not a child was exposed to this questionable material!")

No doubt - once various gun-grabbing lefties get their hands on this data and they see people searched for information on firearms, they will say "WE MUST KNOW HOW MANY OF THESE FIREARM SEARCHES OCCURRED IN OUR JURISDICTION".

Too, recall that the Eeevul Stuff in focus is not "pornography" per se, but rather, "protecting minors from exposure to harmful materials on the Internet."

Then, recall that filter vendors (arguably the establishers of context for this debate) have frequently defined all sorts of sites as "harmful to minors". And by "all sorts", I'm talking about soup to nuts -- everything from outdoor sports (hunting/target shooting) to political sites. I can vaguely recall reading of even this site being blocked by some filters.

It would be difficult to find the thread now (although I guess I could go to google and do a site search and see, lol), I remember FR and some other sites including military sites (.mil domains) being blocked because they are "harmful" to minors.

Imagine an Internet "safe for minors" -- cleansed of all references to "offensive" materials "unsuitable" for their tender young minds. Welcome to the "Rated G" Internet, folks. No discussions of politics. No (*gasp*) discussions of guns (Oh, the humanity!) No discussion of movies! (other than "G-Rated", of course)

So, expect it. Expect a second subpoena, demanding "identifying information."

I expect it, and it won't be about porn or protecting children, the second time around. A lot of localities have expressed a serious interest in trampling on their subjects' rights. Chicago, Maryland, and San Francisco are just the most visible.

[af_vet_rr]

For those not familiar with the nose analogy:

One day a Bedouin and his camel were crossing the desert. Night came and the temperature became colder. The man put up his tent, tied the camel to it, and went to sleep.

The temperature became slightly colder and the camel asked the Bedouin if he could just put his nose in the tent to warm up. The man agreed that the camel could just put his nose in, because the tent was small and there was no room for both. So the camel's nose became warm and after a while the temperature went down even more.

The camel asked the man if he could put his front legs in because they were very cold. The Bedouin reluctantly agreed that the camel could put his front legs in. So the camel moved in his front legs and they became warm. After sometime the camel asked the man to allow him to put in his hind legs or else he won't be able to make the journey the next morning with frozen legs. The man agreed and once the camel moved his hind legs in, there was no room for the Bedouin in his own tent.

Very apt analogy for how the government can act at times.

[af_vet_rr]

And good Lord, what a tree it is! Cameras on every streetcorner (in the UK they are literally going to track every vehicle, everywhere it goes, all the time, and store its movements in a database. OCR will "read" the license plate)... coming soon (already experimented with, with mixed results), "facial recognition", so that people can be "tracked" everywhere they go too. Here, in These United States.

There are already cities in the US trying to track people - I've posted a few threads about small towns in Florida tracking who comes in and out of their towns - nobody cared - got a few dozen responses at the most. The Federal Government is encouraging states to work on some kind of GPS tracking for vehicles, and they are being very quiet about it - I believe Oregon and Washington state are two of the areas they are working on it. Ostensibly it's about charging people by how much they use roads or fuel economy or pick your favorite flaky premise, but it will go further and further.

Most Americans don't even realize that the Bush Administration got the National ID they wanted last year, the so-called "REAL ID", that dictates how state IDs should be handled - basically you'll have a National ID, but it'll still be handled by the state.

I don't know if we just have a lot of stupid people in this country that don't pay attention to what's going on, or if most people are so scared that they will allow the government to do anything, or if they just don't care, or if Conservatives are really and truly a dying breed (or a combination of all four).

[af_vet_rr]

Fox News just had their "Legal Consultant" Craig Mitnick on, live, explaining the Google situation.

He calmly, rationally, soooooooooothingly, explained how the Internet is like a global roadway, and, just like on the road, you should need a license, and everywhere you go, your license is on display, you should likewise be required to be "tagged" to be on the Internet "roadway", so that the "police" can see where you are, and who you are.

He explained how it was only reasonable to require the travels of everyone to be tracked, logged, stored, so that if they are found in a bad location, the police can pull them over and ask what they're doing.

(I paraphrase, but that's the gist of it.)

Are you sure there wasn't a mixup in the videotape room, because that sure sounds a lot like Howard Dean's 'Smart ID' plans a few years back:

Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers' licenses to be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart "cyberterrorism" and identity theft, Dean claimed. "We must move to smarter license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally read at vital checkpoints," Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "Issuing such a card would have little effect on the privacy of Americans."

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."

The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.

From this article at zdnet.com - the author tried numerous times to get Dean's campaign folks to clarify his position after he announced his candidacy, but to no avail (wonder why).

I have to keep telling myself we have Republicans in the White House and Congress, and not Democrats, because it's hard these days to tell the difference.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

The Federal Government is encouraging states to work on some kind of GPS tracking for vehicles

Can you say "OnStar"? I thought you could. I refuse to get this in my car OR pay for the "privilege" of being tracked 24/7.

[af_vet_rr]

you may find this thread interesting.