p2pnet - rss feed: Bush demands Google user data
p2p news / p2pnet: The Dick Cheney / George W. Bush administration wants Google to reveal material held in its databases. And it’s using the tired Kiddie Porn ploy, much favoured by Hollywood and its political henchmen as they force through entertainment cartel friendly legislation, to try to get it.
"The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court," says the San Jose Mercury News. "The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.
"In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period."
The Cheney/Bush government, "indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information, but not Google," says the Mercury News, adding:
"Google has the largest share of U.S. Web searches with 46 percent, according to November 2005 figures from Nielsen//NetRatings. Yahoo is second with 23 percent, and MSN third with 11 percent."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) are currently suing Bush and the National Security Agency in a bid to stop them from secretly spying on US citizens.
Also See:
San Jose Mercury News - Feds after Google data, January 19, 2006
suing Bush - Bush sued by ACLU, CCR, January 18, 2006
January 19th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
I assume if it were the Gore/Clinton administration that would be OK.
January 19th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I don’t think it is okay with any administration.
January 19th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
So, does the fact that it’s the Cheney/Bush administration make it okay in your mind?
Really now. WTF does Clinton have to do with it at this point? Is that the best defense that can be given for the bush administration’s continuos assualt on US citizen’s constitutional rights? I suppose your dad is bigger than my dad too?
January 19th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Clinton’s DMCA sucked bigtime. Bush’s war on freedom of thought sucks far, far more.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
When you do not have a valid argument, simply attack and smear your opponents.
I particularly love the new rumor about the wiretaps saying that Janet Reno authorized a personal search without a warrant, meaning Clinton did the same thing Bush is doing. Janet Reno did authorize a warrantless search but she was allowed to do so under the law at the time. The law has since been changed but when she did it it was completely legal, unlike what bush is doing. The FISA laws allow 72 hours to seek a warrant after the bugging, but Bush is not even bothering to seek any warrants at all. Not only is Bush breaking the law at several levels but he is violating one of the founding principles of this county. What amazes me most however is the number of people who swallow whatever bulls**t Bush puts out and make utterly retarded statements such as the first poster.
January 20th, 2006 at 6:19 am
I assume its OK that spying in the why of a king or a United States President. You fill in the blanks or is that spelt Busk?
January 20th, 2006 at 6:20 am
I assume its OK that spying in the why of a king or a United States President. You fill in the blanks or is that spelt Busk?
January 20th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Let us be clear on exactly what the nature of the Government’s request, uh, I mean demand is.
They are not seeking this data as part of an active, on-going, investigation of child pornography or other criminal activity on the internet. They are seeking the data to try and patch up their arguments in the on-going lawsuit against COPA, the Children’s On-Line Protection Act. The Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional on very narrow technical grounds and essentially gave the Government a rare second chance to revise their briefs and arguments.
As part of this activity, the Government is trying to show how easily anyone (including a minor) can stumble upon porn on the internet when using a search enging.
Google’s position seems to be that a subpoena for this information is improper because it is being sought for administrative purposes and not as part of an actual investigation. Provision of the data should be voluntary and not coerced via a subpoena. I believe that there is also an issue regarding compensation. Generally, when a business is presented with a subpoena as a “Custodian of records” by the Government; the business is expected to absorb the cost of researching, locating, collecting, organizing, and delivering the records to the Court. Contrast this with the procedures in civil cases where the business has the right to recover it’s reasonable costs from the entity seeking them. Thus, when the RIAA or the MPAA issues a subpoena to an ISP to identify an alleged infringer, they may be required to pay the ISP a fee before they get their information.
Essentially, the Government is expecting Google to act as a ‘free’ expert witness for them and to disclose proprietary information for which Google has assumed the entire cost of collection. This would be like you or I expecting to have an editor from the Encyclopedia Britannica at our beck and call to answer any question we may pose as we attempt to patch up our doctoral dissertation on the history of dirt after we screwed it up the first time.
The Government is expecting Google (and the other unnamed Search Engines) to do it’s work for them and for free (or almost free.) I’m not sure what they expect to get from “one million random web addresses” given the prevalence of highly ephemeral, dynamically constructed web pages. They could start just spelunking though the WHOIS database and build their own collection.
I seem to recall that there are some search engines that have a feature whereby you can have some (or perhaps all) of the recently used keywords and/or search terms used on that engine displayed for you, mainly as entertainment to see how perverted other people are. There’s no reason why the Government can’t do this for themselves.
I think that Google has a very good argument that a private company (or individual) should not be compelled by the Government to provide material assistance in a lawsuit addressing constitutional questions for a law that the Government has been enjoined from enforcing until such questions are decided by the judiciary. It may well be that the Government’s position is antithetical to the company’s interests or the staff members’ personal beliefs or values on the issue at hand.
Unfortunately, the current administration acts as though they can do anything they wish, regardless of the law, or coerce anyone into assisting them further the administration’s agenda. The time has come to draw the proverbial “bright line.”
–TurboGeek