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DoJ search requests: Yahoo, AOL, MSN said "Yes"
d2viant writes "Elaborating on a previous article on Slashdot, it appears that the search engines which complied for Department of Justice requests for logs were apparently AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. According to the article, Justice is not requesting this data in the course of a criminal investigation, but in order to defend its argument that the Child Online Protection Act is constitutionally sound."
Does that make Google the sore thumb now?
If DoJ is truly interested in porn, especially child porn, will Google surrender all releated searches?
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
People. Get a grip. Most companies will comply with government subponeas. Don't get your hopes too high that Google will hold it's ground either. In fact I think they're playing with fire.
The ONLY way to protect against this sort of information being used by law enforcement is to never collect it in the first place. Only collect statistical obfuscated data and you won't have these problems - how valid and accurate your statistics based on aggregate data will be is another matter though.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I accidentally found out one day that its possible for not-so-legal images to show up on a google image search. (i was searching for something unrelated which happened to be close to the name of a magazine which isn't so nice. a european publication.) I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that you could find worse stuff through GIS (images.google.com)
The thumbnails are stored at a google location.
Does that mean that Google itself is hosting illegal files?
The article makes the good point that all this data collecting is really useless. So the government finds out that millions of searches for porn takes place every 10 minutes. All that really says is that the porn industry is alive and well.
Unless they're planning on using this data to push anti-porn decency laws (which would be an abuse of power to say the least) the data doesn't suggest in the slightest the context in which the searches were made.
It's also unclear as to whether or not they were after information about percent of porn results in a non-porn search (for example: "breast cancer" as two unquoted words) or just the searches explicitly for porn or child pornography. What about people researching child pornography for a class? It's all so useless that this entire exercise is a waste of money and time at every level.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
If the DOJ are not doing a criminal investigation, why do they have more rights to get the information that they want, when if I were to jump up and down asking for access from MSN, AOL, or Yahoo, I would just be told to go away?
I do not have a problem with them having access, as long as I can have access too. If they get away with this, next time I am left doing a research paper on the popular searching trends of people, I want them to open there databases up to me, too. That is the extent of what they are doing from what I see, just a research paper to prove a point.
I really hate children. The war against adulthood has forced me to make a choice, and that is... I hate children. More importantly... I hate the parents of children who think they have any more right than the rest of us.
Ok, I dont really hate children, but you can see my frustration with this and the arguement "its for the good of the children"
People dont even use the V-chip, and those same people will lobby our government with hopes of ridding the planet of porn.
Microsoft and Apple should just build in a complete censorship layer into their OS that can be attributed to a certain user level account.
That way if your child searches breast... and finds a sweet pair of titties... its your own dam fault and not googles.
Anyone who voted Republicrat or Democan, shut up and go sit on the sidelines.
You've already demonstrated that you want an intrusive, activist government, you have no room to complain now. You ASKED FOR THIS.
______________________________________
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself
A few weeks ago I submitted an Ask Slashdot question to the editors about creating a Slashdot Political Action Network. My question still shows pending, but maybe this latest outrage is a good time for me to post my idea to the public forum. Here's my idea:
Why not set up a method in Slasdhot whereby YRO and related articles have a link that allows a registered user to forward his forum comments to his/her appropriate representative(s) in their district? Non-profits are doing this now with great effect. Instead of preaching to the choir, shouldn't our +5 Insightful comments be forwarded to our representatives and news agencies. Can you just imagine the effect we could have by Slashdotting Congress!!!
A lot of people will say that nobody in Congress reads email, but that's not entirely true. Your opinions are put in For and Against piles and some are even read; I know this from personal experience. By hitting Congress and the news agencies we also generate awareness for many issues that go largely unreported like black box voting, DMCA, and so on.
So Slashdot editors, how about it?
X
Yes you too can be a true Patriot and give your information freely using Patriot Search http://blog.outer-court.com/patriot/
One issue which I think was fuzzy in the earlier post and in this one is what the DoJ is actually concerned with. Are they looking to find child porn-related searches, or are they looking for the amount of (legal) porn sites returned in searche results (which may inadvertently expose children to porn)? Or are they looking at both? These are two very different issues, and I'm curious if anyone can enlighten us as to the real situation.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Easy answer: HELL NO.
Osama Bin Forgotten...I mean Osama bin'Laden...released a video tape today. If George W(ithout Honor) Bush was truly the "security" President instead of the "Safety Dance" President, bin'Laden would be dead and his head rotting on a pike somewhere in Afghanistan.
Hey all you "security moms" who voted this asshole in for a second term: what are you going to do when bin'Laden strikes again on US soil? Did Dubya keep your widdle home safe? Because bin'Laden's assessment is correct: it would be almost too easy to get around Homeland Security. Chertoff is doing a heck of a job, you know.
Would a President Gore have done better in 9/11? Well, for one thing, the Clinton Administration shut down two attempts by Arab terrorists to launch an attack on US soil. The Clinton Administration was hip to bin'Laden and the danger of Al'Qaeda, and tried to impress that danger on Dubya when he was coming in. At best, his reaction was "What, me worry?" At worst, he was protecting the Family Friends in the House of Saud.
I believe that if Gore had been allowed to take his rightful seat in the White House instead of being usurped, we might not be talking about 9/11 changing everything now. We might be talking about the trials of 20 Arab nationals who were caught trying to sneak boxcutters onto three planes. Or, we might have been talking about the trial of Osama bin'Laden at the World Court at Den Haag for crimes against humanity. Or both.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
You know what I'm starting to think more and more?
Fuck this!
The Republic I grew up loving is on life support, at best.
Is this really worth sticking around for? I didn't create all of these problems. Why should I pick up the tab? Plenty of very nice countries would love to have me (and my skills) and my wife (and her skills) and our kids (they can write essays and do math.) I'm keeping my passport current. If a majority of the American people are crazy and stupid enough to keep these nutjobs in power in November, I may just take my marbles and move on.
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Socrates was asked where he was from. He replied not "Athens," but "The world."
> In this case, the evidence would be a bunch of search engine logs, which (the DOJ hopes) would support the case they are trying to make.
More to the point, if this were some grad student doing 'serious' research as opposed to the Justice Dept trying to, horrors of horrors, obtain some actual numbers to support a position in court I seriously doubt there would be all this hullaballoo. Of course I doubt Google would have assisted a grad student either, but Yahoo! or MSN might have. Google didn't help here for the same reason they never release ANY information regarding their search engine, Google is a big opaque blob because that is the way they want it. It isn't good or bad, it just is how they do business.
Democrat delenda est
Have you ever considered that Google didn't comply because it is in Google's best monetary and marketing interests not to?
My blog
If they are trying to prove it, hook up a computer in front of the SCOTUS and show them. Then show them with filters in place. If the filters aren't doing the job, then the SCOTUS might reopen the case.
Yet again I am reminded that a terrorist that originated in a repressive religious fundamentalist oil-rich country engaged in domestic terrorist actions against a secular amoral country, resulting in the emergence of a repressive religious fundamentalsit government siezing power in an oil-dependent country.
This very same oil-dependent country whose regime currently in power has never brought to justice those persons who engaged in an anthrax attack (domestic WMD attack) against the liberal press and liberal political opposition, which has trampled the Constitution and Bill of Rights all in the name of national security.
The very same oil-dependent country whose regime currently in power has waged an illegal and immoral war against a secular amoral but oil-rich country that dared to threaten with military force against that very same repressive religious fundamentalist oil-rich country.
The very same oil-dependent country whose regime currently in power has spent (or committed to spend) a half-trillion dollars in a foreign war while failing to provide the most basic border security, seaport security, or air cargo security all in the name of preserving their mantra of a smaller federal government
The very same oil-dependent country whose regime currently in power has launched their very own "religious thought police" to crush any immoral behaviour amongst it's population that might offend either corporate special interests or the moral fiber of the religious fundamentalist oligarcy that now runs the country, to the extent of shredding the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and any semblance of personal privacy.
And now, that very same terrorist (whom our feckless/fearless leader deemed inconsequential in the war on terror) that originated in a repressive religious fundamentalist oil-rich country has publically announced that that very same oil-dependent country (the USA) whose regime currently in power has done little/nothing to thwart another domestic terrorist attack, but only a matter of planning and logistics.
One is reminded that a period of 8-1/2 years elapsed between this terrorist's first unsucessful attack upon the NYC World Trade Center and the second far more spectacular and successful attempt. Does the phrase "the emperor has no clothes" not draw a parallel thought process that every measure the regime currently in power has engaged in to fight the "war on terror" has done everything to eviserate the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and every last vestige of personal privacy without actually doing anything to effectively counter new acts of domestic terrorism?
I usually don't like to debate the Second amendment with people on the Internet, but sometimes I just feel like sayin' stuff, you know? :-P
Let's disregard for the moment the fact that the Second Amendment does not explicitly restrict the right to bear arms to members of the militia. Let's forget the fact that the Department of Justice has specifically asserted that the Second Amendment secures an individual right, not a collective one. Let's assume that only members of the militia are authorized by the Constitution to bear arms.
Okay?
Okay.
Well, there's still the fact that every male citizen between the ages of 17 and 45 is a member of the militia of the United States of America. You're probably a member yourself (making some assumptions about members of this site's typical demographic). It's law. See 10 USC 13, S.311.
More on topic, what part of "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" does not imply some right to privacy? But then, maybe you're right. If the protection we have is too vague and too easy to circumvent, then maybe what we need is a much more clear and defensive protection of the privacy of citizens, perhaps as a Constitutional amendment.
Remember that all of these companies, especially Google and Microsoft, think the next big thing will be to put a search engine on your desktop.
Google has stated their goal is to index all human information. Microsoft wants to compete in the search engine space, and is pursuing similar goals.
I'm not about to permit any company to search my desktop if they will just hand over my search criteria (and maybe my indices!) any time anyone asks.
This is a perfect example of why not being able to control your own personal information is bad. It's more than just Choicepoint or some hacker getting into a database. It's about the gov't being able to go fishing by polling lots of companies about you until they find one that will just say "OK".
God, not another one!
I'll see your God, not another one! and raise you one!
Outside of the ban were all sorts of guns just as devastating, just as able to be used by a crazy in the pursuit of mayhem, and only off the list because of absurd cosmetic differences. The people who go out to procure an auto-loading gun expressly to then go and shoot people with it are already beyond the reach of our ethics or regulations. If they did want to make a purchase within the ban's rules, all they had to do was purchase any of a number of similar weapons that didn't happen to have a bayonet mount, or a flash suppressor, or other features that have absolutely no bearing on the crime-worthiness or lethality of the weapon. A bolt-action gun would have suited the DC-area "snipers" just as well as any other gun, and I haven't heard about rashes of drive-by bayonettings. The height of this sort of absurdity was neatly on display during the last presidential campaign, when Kerry was vocally on board with a particular gun control measure, and then did a photo-op/campaign stop with some good old boys in the midwest, and spent some time in front of news cameras shooting at clay pigeons with an auto-loading shotgun that the legislation he was backing would have made illegal. Of course, he didn't want to ruin the photo op, and not only didn't make note of that little detail, but also spent the time shooting without eye or ear protection. Save us from such idiocy.
As for worrying about gun-saturation in the society, please note that it's the society, not the guns. Murder is actually down from recent years past, but it's definitely up from decades ago (when you could mail-order guns from Sears). But the real thing to watch is the recently changed demographics. Florida: the addition of right-to-carry laws has reduced killings. Australia: the essentially complete ban on personally owned guns (right through to confiscation) has been met with a huge leap in assaults and murders. Basically, worrying about your personal freedom (as it relates to threats to your life and limbs by criminals) has way, way less to do with whether someone can buy a repearing rifle and more to do with whether local law enforcement is doing catch-and-release with violent criminals. Study after study of actual violent felons shows that they actually say that the one thing that deters them from accosting someone or breaking into a house is not knowing whether or not their potential victim may be armed. In areas where they know that's not possible, they act without concern (i.e., Australia, and now Scotland, etc.).
saying that the assault weapons ban was ineffective is really just flamebait
But it's not, because the ban was ineffective. The National Institute of Justice (a non-partisan piece of the DoJ) provided grants for the independent academic study of exactly this question. They concluded that "We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence" [during the ban's existence]. "It is thus premature to make definitive assessments of the ban's impact on gun violence. Should it be renewed, the ban's effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement" and so on.
A more realistic question would be why groups like the Brady Campaign aren't screaming from the mountains about arresting and prosecuting those that illegally attempt to purchase guns (a felony!) when, during the required background check, they are shown to be disallowed for criminal history reasons. Thousands of felons are turned away from weapons purchases, and just walk away. These are the ones that are so dumb that they're willing to try a "legit" puchase over the counter, and we know who they are (they present ID!), and yet they just walk away... no doubt to go ahead and make an illegal purchase anyway. Those
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.