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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."
At my wife's parents' house, they have the BSafe internet filter installed. It automatically blocks ALL search engine results (as well as message boards, Yahoo Groups, etc). You actually have to load up the filter program and enter a password to disable it to use Google.
How could the law be any more effective at protecting children as it relates to search engines than total blackout? And since that's the point they're trying to make, how useful could the search engine results be? Unless something else is going on (which I don't doubt, unfortunately), I can't see Google's logs mattering to the Gov one bit.
--Jimmy
The idea of an "age of majority" strikes me precisely the same as the idea of a "maximum permissable fraction of Colored blood" would strike you. It's ludicrous. People are individuals and should be judged as such, and restricting all young people because a greater percentage of young people are (immature, unintelligent, whatever) is no different from restricting all black people because a greater percentage of back people are (uneducated, criminal, violent, speak in Ebonics, whatever). So far, the "best" counterargument I've heard to my stance is "well, you grow out of childhood, but you don't grow out of your race". It speaks volumes that this is the most logical counterargument anyone can seem to muster.
It is an outrage that I (or you, or most other people on SlashDot), at 12, was given fewer privileges than Joe Average Drunken Twentysomething. The difference between me and you is that I still care about the plight of those presently suffering from this sort of law, rather than adopting a "oh well, I had to go through that, so will they" sort of devil-may-care stance.
We were all kids once. To me, an intelligent and capable adult who doesn't care about the rights of intelligent and capable youths is somewhat akin to an African-American who doesn't care about slavery or starvation or HIV in Africa. We all came out of that oppression, and it is up to us to fight it.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
For being a failure, he sure does have liberals (and apparently a good number of Slashdotters) wound up. What's that say about liberals?
I do need to get some cigars...
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?