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U.S. Government Wants Google Search Records
JimBridgerBowl writes "According to the San Jose Mercury News, The Bush administration wants access to Google's huge database of search queries submitted by users to track how often pornography is returned in results. This information would be used for Bush's appeal of the 2004 COPA law, targeted to prevent access to pornography by children. The law was struck down because it would have restricted adults access to legal pornography. Google is promising to fight the release of this information." From the article: "The Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn. As a result, government lawyers said in court papers they are developing a defense of the 1998 law based on the argument that it is far more effective than software filters in protecting children from porn."
...then there would be nothing to obtain.
But how can a law that puts no filter whatsoever in place be more effective than a software filter?
That aside, this is pretty alarming. But let's haul out two old arguments: 1. the media tends to be alarmist (true), and 2. if you're innocent, you shouldn't have to worry (true, but only if the government isn't violating the rights of the innocent, and leads to the possibility of forfeiting other rights).
I am scientifically inaccurate.
What relevance is the data if they can't divide it into demographics?
When did Google start asking for your age along with your query? How are they going to tie queries to ages?
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
"We need to see how much of the political commentary online is speech protected by the First Amendment, and how much is dangerous speech that can't be allowed in these extraordinary times," a Whitehouse spokesman said.
I really think we need an amendment to the Constitution that says "the words 'no law' shall be construed by the courts to mean 'no law whatsoever, without exceptions, and this means you, moron.'"
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
If the administration wants statistics to back up there bill, why not ask Google for statistical data regarding pornographic requests instead of records of the actually quaries?
Close -- you want to submit Bush's name in every one of those queries. Once it's apparent that he is inextricably linked to the other search material then he'll tuck his tail between his legs and skulk off home.
Both the summary and the article speak of child porn and protecting children from accessing porn as if they're interchangeable. Well, they're not - which one is it?
There's no more sure-fire way to push people's buttons than to mention child porn... bah. Always makes me feel that it trivializes the problem when it's being used to push someone's agenda.
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
Parents are the ones who need to educate their children... filters are pretty much useless.
I'm sure glad no one "protected" me from porno when I was a kid. Someone always has an older brother or father with porno mags and they make the rounds. I had a pretty good collection before I turned 18 and it was legal - from playboy to hardcore. What's so wrong with pornography? I'd be surprised if Bush didn't have some stashed away in the oval office.
to track how often pornography is returned in results.
Isn't this an invasion of privacy?
What ever happened to parents and not the government being responsible for their kids?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
children seeing porn != child porn
Trust me, I work for the government.
Is that the government is claiming other search engines have already given up the requested data. I'd rather search with Google who's trying to protect my privacy than some other engine that coughed up the goods without a fight!
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
I thought the two salient points from the article were
1) Google were resisting the subpoena
and
2) Others (unnamed) had complied with the subpoena
which is slightly worrying for those that use other search engines.
Isn't there already a country that filters all the content that they allow within their borders on the internet? Hmmmm......oh yeah.
Welcome to China!
The problem with this action is that if it passes, it will serve as a foot in the door so that it is possible for the Bush administration (and those who will follow it) to inspect and analyze the internet habits and actions of everyone who has an internet connection. Right now there are state agents questioning certan US citizens' because of their reading habits, there are databases ran with information on normal, law abiding citizens just because they have an oppinion different from the current administration and God knows what other things are being done behind closed doors. Doesn't this worry anyone?
US: formerly known as land of the free, currently aquiring police state status and on the fast track to fascism.
One imagines the dedicated team of talented evaluators at Justice combing the list of returned sites, carefully categorizing them as pRon or non-pRon. No waste of tax dollars there -- noooo. Glad to see we're spending our dollars on the big issues that face us as a society.
The Supreme Court decision back in June 04 went back, again, to the first amendment. The series of decisions made over the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) and the earlier Communications Decency Act, came back to the laws not being "narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest" and to whether less restrictive alternatives were available.
In response to those two reservations, Bush and company are apparently looking to prove how very compelling their government interest is -- by showing that kids are awash in the stuff on Google. Apparently the part where they get access to this enormous, open-ended source of information about searches doesn't set off any bells with them about the other half of that decision -- where the idea was to minimize the restrictiveness of the law and keep government intrusion to a minimum.
These were the "small government" conservatives, right?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I'm all for preventing child access to porn. But if google hands over (voluntarily or otherwise) even a portion of their logs for a specific purpose it makes it just that little bit easier for Bush (or whoever) to get their grubby mitts on log data the next time round. Where does it end?
Also, how would this play from an international viewpoint? Would the data (potentially) handed over include google.co.uk or google.de logs?
The EU is busy being lobbied (can you be busy being lobbied?) about communications data retention (e.g. pi report). Without serious safeguards in place and with all those logs sloshing around it's only a matter of time before log subpoenas become routine.
1. protecting children from pr0n is completely different from combatting child pr0n. keeping johnny from searching for free pr0n sites is not the same as preventing the sickos out there violating kids. 2. heaven forbid the PARENTS actually do something and pay attention to their kids of they're looking at things they shouldn't be online. It's not the gov'ts job to be a babysitter, parent, etc.
Will there be some agreed legal "definition" of what is pornography? Or will it be a subjective defn or list of key "words"? The results will change dramatically. Of concern here is that we would have a case of "apples" and "oranges" with an ability to produce statistical results to suit any type of requirement of the asking person.
So, we should believe that when the federal authorities are given access to something like 600 million Google searches per week indexed to specific IP addresses, they're only going to use that data for the specific purpose of fighting child pornography? That the NSA, for example, would decline to data mine that information?
Given that the current administration has shown that they're willing to spy on US citizens domestically without warrants, even though warrants are easy to get retroactively, why should we trust anything they say regarding 4th amendment rights?
...beat a dead horse. Is protecting minors from unwanted and unintended exposure to pornography a good thing? Yes! Can the government mandate it? No! It goes back to the problem of parenting. If parents are giving their kids unfettered access to the Internet, they're going to see this stuff. It's no different that parents not watching what programs their kids see on TV. The US Government is trying to parent the nation's kids, when it can't even govern the country effectively (NOTE: this is not Bush-bashing; the Democrats are just as ineffectual as the Republicans).
It's good that Google has drawn the line. They aren't responsible for what their search engine turns up; the Internet is free territory and if you put up pornography or any other type of content someone finds objectionable, it may turn up. That doesn't make it Google's responsibility to police what its users are doing, anymore than it makes it the government's responsibility. At some point parents need to take back the power.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Yeah but thank Science he's got the right to say it freely, pass it off as fact, and mislead anyone stupid enough to believe it (which since it bashes Bush is 99.9% of Slashdot readers).
This is the same administration that claimed it needed medical records of women who had abortions in order to defend an anti-abortion law in court. And of course one that feels it can tap phones in violation of federal law. The think tanks that define the current Republican agenda are scary as hell.
Because we allow any citizen, even those who can't read or write, to vote.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What's truly frightening is that, in todays America, you had to give some consideration to whether that quote was factual or not.
rev.jsfk
I don't think you were supposed to actually believe that was something a White House spokesperson said. I believe the GP was merely trying to make a point by suggesting the implications of allowing the gov't access to Google logs. It may be "for the children" now, but next they'll be doing it to silence "unpatriotic" speech, or some other crap...
That's the logical fallacy of the sheep. Why is it so many people prefer to bury their heads in the sand, and refuse to learn?
Sir, please open your eyes. Millions of innocent people have been slaughtered throughout human history (often within their own laws) by various governments. As shocking and frightening as it must seem to you, being innocent is no safeguard. Indeed, innocence has nothing to do with it when government officials are granted vast, unchecked power.
The only safeguard between yourself and unjustified prosecution and imprisonment (or even death) is a thin, old piece of paper. And people's willingness to uphold the words written on it.
I suggest you acquaint yourself with it.
Or perhaps I should make it more simple. The Bush administration has shown itself willing to abuse the power it had before the Patriot Act was passed. The question now before us is what are the limits to its current power?
You may not like the answer. Your "rights" have been redefined, and so has the definition of "abuse".
Innocence isn't going to save you if you are currently viewed as the wrong type of person. Indeed, in such cases you no longer have a right to legal counsel, or to let other people know you have been detained. Or the right to a speedy trial.
Welcome the new world that your elected representatives have given you. But please don't be under the mistaken assumption that innocence will protect you, or that the government isn't abusing your legally defined rights.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
They grab power.
Give them the right to fight child porn "for the children", and the next thing they're doing is searching that data for "terrorists".
Give them the right to set up a retirement plane "for your security", and they take the money and the next thing you know the retirement plan is broke.
Give them the right to set up health care "for your health" and they ration the care and make you wait in line even if that means you're going to die.
Give them the right to set up a welfare system "to help the needy" and they set up a system that keeps you dependent upon government largess for the rest of your life.
Give them the right to spy on those that deserve to be spied on "to keep you safe" and they turn it around and use it on their citizens (and the US is by no means even close to being in the forefront on this issue, FWIW).
That's what governments do - they accumulate power. And in accumulating power that get it from somewhere else - from YOU.
And money is the lifeblood of any government's attempt to encroach your rights. And encroach them they will. Without money they can't pay for the "needed" programs that are nothing more than systems to entrench the powerful by giving them even more power.
Anyone who thinks he's for individual rights and doesn't support MASSIVE and IMMEDIATE tax cuts and locking debt limits in place to shackle the power-grabbing aspects of any government is a blithering idiot who doesn't understand what all governments do.
Hey All, I was just thinking that Google has a reasonable case under the 4th amendment to block the seizure of this information. And just to make sure everyone who's reading this is on the same page, the 4th Amendment Reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searced, and the persons or things to be seized." My interpretation of the text is that the government can't seize your effects, which includes information, without substantial information that suggests that the information to be seized would help prosecute a crime, and after attaining the probable cause, a warrant must be issued. Now, what I don't know is how this would effect subpoenas, but this seems more like an seizure than compelling someone to appear in court. So, if Google argues that this information is the property of the end users and only held by Google with their consent, then the Government would need a warrant for each user's search data that they want to use. If the courts agree with this argument it would essentially make it impossible to obtain such information as the Government would not have probable cause to seize the effects of a random million or so people to make their case for the COPA law. The fact that they're not attempting to prosecute any of the people would make it even more difficult. Any real legal experts secretely trolling slashdot forums that want to comment?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
So. Fucking. What. The Clinton administration isn't pressuring Google, the Bush administration is. By your logic, an admin that instituted the draft for an unjust war would be off the hook and the one that may originally used it properly would be to blame for it? Sounds like unadulterated bullshit to me.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Just the political value of the data -- to discredit or spy on enemies -- is so great that I can't imagine it will stay secret forever. With it, the Bush administration (or Putin or any other) can gather dirt on everyone, from congress to the dog catcher candidate. In fact, for censorship purposes it almost doesn't matter if it leaks: By merely seeking the data, the gov't raises legitimate questions in many minds and will have a 'chilling effect' on what they search for.
I think that, until now, most people looked on privacy as something that idealogues worried about and which had no practical significance. I think that attitude was only a lack of experience and foresight. Unfortunately, their information is already on Google's servers; there is no going back.
Google should simply anonymize the data: They can collect aggregate market research, or even person-by-person research, yet remove all identifying information. Until then, I would seriously consider avoiding using Google, or use an anonymizing proxy service to protect yourself. The standard of behavior in privacy matters must be raised.
I partially agree that he has done the things you stated, but I would argue that doing all of these things takes vast resources away from more important things. Common sense tells you that our response to 9/11 is over blown. A few thousand deaths is not that large in the grand scheme of things. If we are interested in saving lives we should have focused on treating heart disease or preventing traffic accidents.
Why did he get re-elected again?
Because only 33% of the eligible voters voted last election. Out of that 33%, 51% are neo-cons, the rest are so disorganized they couldnt agree on a candidate if the candidate was God. Everyone except the neo-cons have given up on voting. Nothing will change until all eligible voters exercise their one and only voice in the process and vote.
There is a difference between 'Morals' and 'Ethics' while I do not care to debate how 'Moral' GWB is, I would debate how 'Ethical' he is. Having a panel present false evidence to support his need to go to war with Iraq does not seem very 'Ethical'. Creating a program like 'No Child Left Behind' railing it through the senate, and then under cutting it's funds doesn't seem very 'Ethical'. Sending kids off to a war on foreign soil to die under false pretenses doesn't seem very 'Ethical'. Spying on innocent Americans doesn't seem very 'Ethical'.
Oh... and BTW... about his 'Morality' - refusing to meet with the mother of a child who died in a war he started doesn't seem to 'Moral'. Having his spin doctors smeer her name doesn't seem to 'Moral'.
Miserable Failure... yeah... I think that sums it up!
What about citizens from countries other than the US that use google?
just to have basics like ROMS, torrents, pr0n, and other important info, including legitimate info. Well, the only good that may come of this is a generation of 1337 h4x0rz. https://beijing999.com/ https://proxify.net/ https://pimpmyip.com/ proxyswitcher, etc. are your friends and filters are your enemy (because filters are freakishly ineffective at hitting their target, but good at getting everything else).
Can you really trust any studies that show up on TV or the newspaper anymore? Pr0n, weed, videogames, global warming, indooor pollution, and everything else under the sun are GOING TO KILL YOU or MAKE YOU KILL OTHERS. Jesus H. Christ! (as if people haven't killed in His name...) 40 years ago scientists were worried of global cooling. The Earth has naturally warmed and cooled many times in the past - and things died, but that's nature. We're still alive. Today's youth are, according to the FBI - the least violent generation in American history, maybe, maybe, because they are inside playing videogames? Oh, and now masturbation may prevent prostate cancer - that's what I call wanking now, cancer prevention. I really just wished people weren't so ready to believe _everything_ the media, a Nigerian email, or a politician (all parties, Libertarians too) tells them to. There's a reason what you watch on TV is called programming...
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
children pr0n is quite a delicate excuse to use for logging search queries and their originating IPs, isn't it? If you scare enough, the public will allow you anything .-) (That sentence is SO old you gotta remind people *g*)
This was already used years ago to try to shut down the mail order porn industry - a DA would order something (via mail) to some county with a sympathetic judge and file suit there for violating community standards where it was recieved. It's an unacceptable burden to require someong fulfilling a request to first analyze the community standards of the reciepient, and the problem is even worse on the internet.
Lastly, it's important to remember that the internet is *not* like the real world, and that "community standards" a pretty questionable standard to apply to it anyway. Unlike physical locations, you can't be required to pass by a porn site in order to get to somewhere else. If you're looking at porn on the internet, then you're either doing it with full knowledge of your circumstances, someone has subverted your computer, or you're doing foolish image searches. And even if it's the last, I think it's extremely questionable that we need legislation to "protect" against this. I suspect that the amount of porn "delivered to children" when those children weren't actively seeking it out is extremely minimal and unlikely to happen enough to damage someone.
I'll give an allegory for the whole "accidental search" thing. When I was in high school a few friends and I were on a road trip to Seattle. We were wandering around the city and saw a sign for some shop that was something like "fantasy bookstore". I'm sure you can see where this is going - it was, of course, an adult sex toy/bookstore, not at all the right kind of fantasy. But just like when you mis-click on a search result, it took about 10 seconds for us to realize that we'd made a wrong turn and go back out. The fact that a minor can accidently walk through the door of an adult bookstore (much less a minor who actively tries to sneak in past the proprietor) does not mean we need legislation to "protect" that.
Ahh, yes. The old "I read it on the internet, so it must be true!" Are you so sure it's legit?
n -just-a-goddamned-piece-of-paper/ rightfully expresses the need for some verification, rather than just a single person's dramatizing article. My short searching was unable to find any verification.
I will tell you that 5 seconds of searching gives you little information, besides a bunch of articles referencing the one you linked. Many of them, such as http://www.ioerror.us/2005/12/09/bush-constitutio
Wishing something was true doesn't make it so.
People on both sides need to cut this sort of thing out. They need to cool off and be reasonable with each other again. Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of open hostility and attacks.
With Judge Alito's confirmation, the Supreme court will certainly back the right of the Federal Government to request Google's data. You should expect to see a number of such cases resurface once Alito is confirmed.
I doubt it is a coincidence that the Bush administration is bringing this up again.
Funny thing... I do not hear any complaints from Microsoft and their search engine... Do you think the feds forgot to ask Bill for his data?
What does "community standards of the recipient" mean? The recipient is a minor, so obviously his standards don't apply. If I'm a nudist living in a staunchly conservative county, and I allow my child to see nudity because I think it's natural, then the "community standards" are odds with my standards. So should my child be allowed to see a naked woman or not? I say yes, but apparently you say no.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Why not just quit worrying? Statistically speaking, the two people most likely to sexually abuse your children are you and your spouse, in roughly that order. Then other family members. Then other people whom they know well, such as friends' families, teachers, sports coaches, religious leaders, and so forth. Total strangers barely figure as a risk; registered sex offenders probably come even lower, because they know damn well they'll be the first suspect if anything happens.
Besides, if all that guy has done is download child porn, then there's no particular reason to assume he's a predatory paedophile, any more than the fact that I've watched The Godfather means I'm likely to be affiliated with the Mafia.
You could salt the hashes to increase cost. But you make a good point.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
The ACLU also defended Rush Limbaugh against what it considered to be government intrusion into his medical records -- you recall his Oxycontin "doctor shopping" case. They've represented unpopular opinions at most points on the political spectrum.
Yes, it's a group that operates according to principle and not partisan positioning. That earns it the eternal enmity of those whose real credo is maintaining the status quo in order to keep a grip on power. (Let's all take a moment to consider which of our two parties essentially supports the ACLU, and which made being a "card carrying member" of the ACLU a dirty epithet in the 1988 election cycle.)
(The parent poster missed the distinction between the law that was passed and the overreaching attempt to get Google's records, of course.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
There is the also the fact that certain searches, local.google.com in particular, can rapidly identify a person, hashing of IP or no.
While there are technical solutions, we can't even begin to step down this path. I hope the feds get smacked down for this.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
The fundamental flaw with your argument is that you're thinking about the Internet as a "delivery" mechanism that would be covered by your generic statute. The Internet is not like the USPS where you "distribute" things from point A to point B. It's a marketplace/community where content is "made available" to anyone with access. . . . and if you actually believe that this really about porn, you're misguided X 2
Child Porn is the root password to the Constitution.
(Terrorism is the alternate password).
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Out of all my friends and all of the girls I've dated, I'm the only one I know of whose parents took an interest in teaching them about sex. Fortunately, for my friends, they had sex ed in school. This is, increasingly, no longer the case.
People need to realize-- teenagers will have sex whether you like it or not. Do you bury your head in the sand, or do you teach them the one thing that we know will make a difference? If anything, sex ed decreases promiscuity because girls are informed of the consequences. I just can't believe the kind of cultural 180 that has happened in this country in the last few years.
I have only a question about these community standards. If I am living in US, but not socializing with people in my town, instead being on the internet as part of the slashdot community or some other online community or communities, which standards do apply? What if I am only part of an online community whos members are not living in US? I think its time we set a precedent in the courts and define the word 'community' the way *WE* know it. And the use of community standards by courts will be just fine.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
How is it that Clinton gets the knock for doing it with a chick...
While Bush gets a bye for having a male prostitute spend the night... several times.
(Oh yeah, that is right... this terror stricken white house doesn't really keep track of who is in the house with the president. Riiiigggghhhhtttt.)
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Karma be damned, here I go.
You mention that kids entering a porn shop should be shown the door. That's 100% correct. However, kids entering a website. How is the owner to know that it's a kid? What if the kid lies and says "Sure, I'm 18!" There's nothing anyone can do about that, and I don't care how great your programming skills are.
The truth of the matter is that porn is going to be on the internet, the mail, the TV and video etc because there are a lot of legal adults that are interested enough in it to make it profitable, so it's not going to go away. What needs to be done is place the responsibility of supervision firmly where it belongs... the parents or guardians. If little billy-joe-bob is wandering the llama sex sites, why should the llama sex site owner be sued? (ignoring the obvious llama activity) billy-joe-bob's parents should be supervising his internet usage and controlling his access.
There also needs to be reasonable limits set on accesibility. Sure an 11 or 12 yr old kid shouldn't have access to porn, although I know a few that would actively look for it if they could. Hell damn near every 13 yr old (or older) boy on the planet is most likely actively looking for porn. I personally feel that if a child is able to decide to go looking for the stuff, and his or her parents aren't monitoring that connection, the website owner shouldn't be penalized. If the website owner is spamming porn or placing links in google that are deceptive that's another story. Luring people of ANY age to your porn site should be illegal period. However if a 13 yr old clicks on a link "RED HOT TEEN PUSSY THAT WANTS YOU!" well.. that 13 yr old certainly isn't looking for pictures of burning felines waiting to be adopted.
The world according to SComps
'cause they are chicken shits?
They can't raise their own kids without the gov'ment helping them protect them from the baddies... and they are scared as all get out that there might not really be a God.
Gotta suck being them...
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Most pre-war intelligence was believed to be true even by opponents of the war. Intelligence by definition relies on SPYING which is at best guessing
... we shouldn't.
Bush has proven himself, time and time again, to be a bad guesser.
When he says "trust me"
We should fire his ass. (not wait for him to leave)
Of course Democrats NEVER use unfunded mandates
This doesn't make it right, it makes them BOTH wrong.
The battle cry of all pacifists.
Are you saying non-pacifists like to be lied to?
WMDs was simply one of the reasons for the war.
You mean, one of the false reasons for the war.
How do you feel about all the mass graves (approximately 500,000 men, women, and KIDS) we are finding there?
I think they should kill the motherf*ckers responsible.
Starting with the industrial complex that created and sold them... and, don't forget the Dick & Donald show, either.
History doesn't remember all the intelligence fuck ups that happened in WWII...
Those weren't intentional.
These are...
That's one of the problems.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
"Community standards" are bullshit regardless. If I want to watch something in the privacy of my own home, that's my right, whether the "community" thinks it's indecent or not. Barring things that obviously hurt or abuse others, such as child porn or snuff films. But those aren't illegal for indecency reasons, they're illegal for much more important reasons.
That the civil war was principally about slavery was simply the propaganda of the victor (which so often makes it into the history books after a war). Slavery was merely the trigger that provoked the real issue: states' rights vs. a strong federal government. Lincoln said that he would have freed all of the slaves, some of the slaves, or none of the slaves, whichever worked best to keep the states united. However, "strong federal government" is a poor rallying cry.
For those who think the result didn't work out well for the individual (given that slavery was on it's way out ion any case, albeit slowly), it's hard to imagine that Germany would have lost WWII without a united America supporting the British and to some extent the Russians though lend/lease in the early years (mostly in defiance of popular opinion) of that war. It seems quite likely that if the south had succeeded in seceding, Hitler would have been able to complete the war on one front before opening another, and we'd all be speaking German.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Back when our parents were children, there was very little mail order shipping. There was no wired transmission of digital media. Basically, if you wanted obscene content, you had to walk down to your neighborhood adult store and buy it. Of course, no one wants a porno shop next to their children's daycare, and some rightfully saw these establishments as blights on their community. While no one should have a problem with you consuming hardcore BDSM material in your home, some understandably had a problem with the stores you had to buy it from setting up shop right down the road. NIMBY, basically, just with porn and not waste.
Not that I nessessarily agree with it, but this is why community standards were put into law. Basically, you couldn't sell anything in a community where the "average person" disapproved. That wasn't supposed to mean that you couldn't buy it in the next town over and then bring it back to your home -- they just couldn't distribute it in your city limits.
We all know that these kinds of things mean nothing in today's world. But, many politicians and many judges are older and have not grown up with this worldview, and do not completely understand it. Others just hate porn and realize they can control it this way. Some are just power hungry. Whatever the reason, the old "community standards" no longer apply. If I buy a dildo from goodvibes.com, did they sell it to me in the community they're based in? Or the community I'm based in? The online community? The community where the billing took place? All of them? If I download a video from bangbros, isn't it technically "delivered" in any jurisdiction those bits happen to pass through?
Besides, who cares what you bought or where you bought it from, or how offensive it is when it comes to your house in a plain brown box -- or if it comes to your house through digital wires, completely hidden from anyone who might have seen it? The problem is, these laws started as a way to keep people from inadvertantly seeing obscene content they didn't wish to see and have changed into a way of keeping anyone from seeing obscene content.
Hopefully, the courts will eventually get this right, but one thing about our government is that it does nothing quickly.
-------------------------------------------------
Here is an odd solution. Perhaps we can update our sexual mores up from victorian england, or our puritan roots?
Why the hell are Americans such damn prudes...
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
See search engine watch for extensive
details, but the upshot is that the administration only asked search engines
for a week's worth of search terms data and the request didn't include
asking for anyone's personal data, just a list of terms and related search
frequency statistics. Almost all the other major search engines have
released the requested data and publicly stated that the data didn't include
anything personal or threatening to individual privacy. Google's refusal
probably has more to do with competitive reasons more than any privacy
issues.
Don't believe all the hype you might read in the Mercury News.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
--Stars & Stripes by KMFDM
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.