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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."
I hope not. I hate child porn and all that, but that doesn't mean that big brother should be watching everything.
Yay, I have a sig.
The giraffe video?
.
Giraffes. Who couldn't appreciate those long necks? So slender
Why confront me? It's obvious.
She's stalling until the police arrive.
"Nothing you saw was illegal - in the countries it was filmed. "
So appropriate.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
....then at least in balls to stand up against , google wins by a tremendously big margin.
Time and time again we hear about privacy, freedoms and liberties in the US being restricted in favour of "security". This is just one small example in a field of many. Now I ask a question to all Americans: do you actually feel any safer? If you do, please explain.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Is there a reason that the DoJ needs information from all of the search engines? At some point, can't we make a statistical comparison and say that since x% of results in AOL / MSN / Yahoo were for this subject, that google most likely is in the same area?
I mean are the users of google search that much different than AOL / MSN / Yahoo???
Does the DoJ need a complete analysis? If so, let's hand this over to the US Census bureau.
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
Aren't subpoenas supposed to be reserved for matters where there is some kind of trial involved? Surely the government can't just subpoena information for research purposes.
Why would MSN, Yahoo, and AOL be so eager to cooperate? I can't believe that these corporations care one way or the other about people viewing porn. So what is it? Are they hoping that by cooperating they get some special favors later, or do they fear recrimination by the Bush administration if they refuse?
It is interesting how many of the other search engines outside of google bowed down to this. The reason for the search engine logs seems quite shady to me, and seems like a ruse just to get access for some other purpose. I have a feeling Google probaby detected this and has decided that the intent of the log request is much deeper and shadier than it looks.
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.
And if we go back a few years, we can see all of this COINTELPRO data wasn't to stop foreigners, or even people doing illegal things, but to harrass people like Martin Luther King, or breakins to the Watergate hotel to bug the Democrats. Not like the Democrats have rolled this stuff back when they got into office, Clinton's staff was over-requesting FBI files of people during "filegate".
And we're told it's because of the "War on Terror", which is a war which they never say when it will end. It reminds me of Orwell's 1984, when the government is in a state of permanent war, or war preparation anyhow. I may be older than some Slashdotters, but when I grew up I was told the US only had foreign military bases because of the USSR, and if they weren't targets of attack by Moscow, we wouldn't have them there. A decade and a half after the fall of the Berlin wall, I'm now told we are in a new state of permanent war - the cold war has become the war on terror. American military bases still circle the globe - in fact they've expanded, especially in countries south of Russia and west of China. The Russians used to say America had bases all over the world not because of Russia, but because of American imperialism. I was always told this was false, the bases were there because of the possibility of Russian attack. A decade and a half later, what the Russians used to say rings truer than what the US used to say. In fact, the government has now changed its story, and wants us to forget they used to say that, and have us all concentrate on their new permanent war.
As of July, 2005:
2 156431
Google: 36.5%
Yahoo: 30.5%
MSN: 15.5%
AOL: 9.9%
Ask: 6.1%
InfoSpace: 0.9%
Others: 0.6%
Soure: http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/
Probably more recent numbers around, but I doubt anything's changed dramatically in the past 6 months.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Google has been sued for not releasing the requested information.
There is no knowledge that is not power.
The COPA is a bad law. Bad in the sense that it is not doing what it truly seeks to do: curb child exploitation on the internet.
The DOJ is trying to go after child pornographers, but they are making laws for service providers.
This discrepancy is typical of old-school thinking. Stop the profitablility of such activity by going after the people making money in the process, but, especially on the internet, this only servers to inhibit legal providers of porn.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Well, the puppy was a terrorist.
Quotes from the article here: http://news.com.com/Feds+take+porn+fight+to+Google /2100-1030_3-6028701.html?tag=nefd.lede
AOL response...
AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein confirmed that the company received a subpoena from the DOJ but said the information from the ACLU was not accurate.
"We did not and would not comply with such a subpoena. We gave (the DOJ) a generic list of aggregate and anonymous search terms, and not results, from a roughly one day period. There were absolutely no privacy implications," Weinstein said. "There was no way to tie those search terms to individuals or to search results." He declined to elaborate.
Yahoo response...
Yahoo acknowledged on Thursday that it complied with the Justice Department's request but said no personally identifiable information was handed over. "We are vigorous defenders of our users' privacy," said Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako. "We did not provide any personal information in response to the Justice Department's subpoena. In our opinion this is not a privacy issue."
MSN response.... ?????
Please don't let the details hit you in the ass in reguards to AOL/Yahoo.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
I'm not getting it. How do random anonymous search results of any kind assist in determining whether something is constitutionally sound? I take it that they want to make sure the Act is not trampling on anybody's constitutional rights, correct? I'm trying to imagine what you could possibly learn with regards to that, from search results. You can see percentages of people searching for particular things and what they wind up getting as a result. Ok, so you know roughly what random people of unknown ages are searching for, and you have a rough idea of where they might choose to land. I can't find the link to constitutional issues here, so I just have to say: wtf?
"Following the incredible reversal in the "Google vs DoJ" case, the Supreme court confirmed that kids watching porn is all right as long as it is kids porn.
Sesame Street is the first to react with the DVD (thought lost) title "Frogs'n Sow - Peggy Gets It !"
On other news, the pope died of a heart attack while watching what he thought were Sesame Streets Re-run, and GW Bush commited seppuku with a preztel on seeing the show.
Now the Dow-Jones, with the barrel @ 199$, the Emirates decided to buy the US of A..."
Do I really need to put a "/laugh, it's funny" marker ? 8p
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
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
To be honest - I've been skeptical about Google for some time. I was not sure how I felt about a company who's sole purpose in life was to perform the same services as Yahoo! but market it as "not evil". Sucessfully so, I might add. I honestly doubted their "Don't be evil" mission.
After reading up about the other companies quietly folding under White House pressure, I am honestly relieved to see SOMEONE finally standing up for the rights of our citizens. Rights are NEVER erroded all at once. The day will never come when we wake up and the amendment about free speech is removed from the Consitution. The day WILL come, however, when we wake up and the free speech amendment means nothing because several iterations of the "Patriot Act" have erroded what it really means.
People in this country need to seriously wake the fuck up. We've been through several iterations of errosion of our rights under this white house. Allow me to sum up: 1) Plame's identity leaked (treason according to the law - I eagerly await the hangings), 2) The Patriot Act (need I say more?), 3) CIA spying on US citizens (notice how quickly W. moved on catching the traitors that leaked that), and 4) This request for search records. The day is rapidly approaching when we wake up and our rights will not mean anything ALL IN THE NAME OF PROTECTING US FROM [insert irrational fear here].
Today, I for one, take my hat off to Google. At the least, even if they are required to acquiese in the end, it garned media attention on the shifty White House request. It will be a long time before I doubt "Don't be evil." again.
I think Google should comply with the request... ...by running it through something like CAPTCHA and providing the information as hard copy.
-- Terry
Do you really think that real child pornographers are going to look for things through Google without any kind of redirection?
What do they think, that we criminals are stupid? Anyone heard of proxies, remembering/bookmarking URL's, non-USA search engines?
This is really a stupid thing going on. This government and laws passing in the "great" United States of America makes me remember of the witchhunt for "communists" about 50y ago. It's happening all over again but now you just have to accuse that neighbour you don't like of filesharing, terrorism or kiddie-porn-searches. And anyone remembers those commies from half a decade ago? No, media, government and agency's are all trying to cover it up as if it never happened or that 'it wasn't that bad'.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
- Iraq has WMD and we have proof (being that Iraq is trying to procur plutonium in nigeria but disproved by the NSA AND the CIA).
- The patriot act will only be used against terrorist.
- We would only operate within the confines of the patriot act.
- We will balance the budget.
- We will lower the defict.
- We only spy on terrorist and only with warrents.
- I will fire any traitor in the white house (one has been caught, and he quit; more to come).
- Sibel Edmunds is a security risk (well, at this time, we still do not know.
- Global warming is not happening.
- Ok, global warming is occuring, but it is natural and man can not influence it.
- We will catch OBL.
- The war in Iraq is over.
- The war in afghanastan is over.
- No information was obtained from the airlines.
- The information from the one airline did not go into TIA.
Now, trust us that this info will go into protecting children. These are the same "no child left behind" that was not funded.Hummmmm.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A friend of mine is a chef and found out the hard way...do NOT google for a "loose meat sandwich"!!!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
In fact, I feel less safe. WAY less safe. Now I have to worry about all the people in the world who are pissed at me for being an American, the new people in the world who hate me because W has pissed them off, and now I have to worry about my own government spying on me and throwing me in jail if I type something into a search engine that returns something naughty.
And that can happen without you doing anything wrong. Ever type in a search that returned a few surprises? How about your wireless access point. Are you SURE it can't be hacked? You BETTER be.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
So now a block of searches associates the name Geekotourist with rockets and with one or two addresses. Does this affect my privacy if these searches are clumped together?
Did Yahoo/AOL include any white pages or yellow pages searches while doing the government's homework? Does the government expect Google to keep all Google Local searches out of the "1 week of searches"? The white page and local style searches leak personal info like mad.
Or what if a search was designed to check on one's personal privacy, for example:
And while Y/AHOOL didn't provide "the results of the searches" to the gov't, I assume the gov't will be re-running them. The searches 'Cameras near 742 Evergreen Terrace' combined with 'photographing children' may have just been me helping with photos at a birthday party or finding a portrait studio. But its going to be analyzed by people who think 15-degrees-of-separation is a reasonable search.
From the prescient (and unfortunately being used as an anti-guidebook) best essay this century on Why Privacy is a Fundamental Human Right [just substitute 'Porn' for 'September 11' as the excuse the gov't gives, it comes out the same]:
"But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy - the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us - is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being.
"If someone intrudes on our privacy - by peering into our home, going through the personal things in our office desk, reading over our shoulder on a bus or airplane, or eavesdropping on our conversation - we feel uncomfortable, even violated.
"Imagine, then, how we will feel if it becomes routine for bureaucrats, police officers and other agents of the state to paw through all the details of our lives: where and when we travel, and with whom; who are the friends and acquaintances with whom we have telephone conversations or e-mail correspondence; what we are interested in reading or researching; where we like to go and what we like to do.
"If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
But there also will be tangible, specific harm.
"The more information government compiles about us, the more of it will be wrong. That's simply a fact of life.
"...But if our privacy becomes ever more systematically invaded by the state for purposes of assessing our behavior and making judgments about us, wrong information and
I hope not. I hate child porn and all that, but that doesn't mean that big brother should be watching everything.
Agreed.
But if they're gonna be watching me (I personally like Yahoo for the combination of search and headlines), I can assure them that they're going to get a hell of a show. I'll go so far as to create a spider which hunts for kitty porn ("MmMMMmm... Next we have Fluffy the Persian. She's an 8-year-old who can lick her own ass and likes it when her 30-year-old master rubs her stomach.") and then pipes keywords and sentences from that directly into Yahoo and then uses the search results to find more sites to spider.
Naturally, being my first real programming project since University, it will be released open-source in case the community happens to have suggestions on how I can improve its efficiency.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I think that speaks for itself. Child pornography laws are not just about exposed skin; they're around to prevent the exploitation of children in which Knox was very obviously (and self-admittedly) involved.
I think people are misunderstanding the whole nature of this law and the controversy around it. It's NOT about child porn.
The purpose of this law is to increase censorship on all porn, even legal porn, and it's driven by the Christian Right Wing, supposedly to protect children from viewing it.
That's why it's initially a 1st amendment issue (freedom of speech) which is now becoming a 4th amendment issue (unreasonable search and seizures) as the admin asks for private records. But make no mistake, the dispute is not a "child porn" issue, it's a censorship issue, supposedly to protect children. Big difference.
Child porn is already aggressively investigated by the DOJ, and it's an entirely separate thing. In those investigations, the DOJ has no trouble getting warrants which all the major companies including Google are happy to comply with to catch child pornographers.
It's also a pretty sneaky move by the admin, because obviously nobody likes the words "child" and "porn" anywhere near each other, which distorts and misrepresents the whole issue. So to anyone who took the bait, congrats, you've been had by the Bush admin and their clever spinners.
=P
The following are quick links for each popular search engine to perform the search:
Google
Yahoo
MSN
AOL
If a lot of people did it every day, it would eventually skew popular queries, and send a little message, should Google loose the fight.
It's on my blog already. If a ton of people do the same, and get a big campaign going, it could be interesting.