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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."
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?
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.
Hear, Hear. In my book google just went from [Do No Evil] to [Do Good] and [Kick the motherfuckers who want to deprive me of my constitutionally given rights in the teeth].Long Live Google.
Amen
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 work for an attorney, though I myself am not a lawyer, and our firm handles what are know as section 1983 cases. Section 1983 deals with police misconduct. One of our current endeavors (pardon the the lack of details, too much info would reveal the client) involves a person who had an arrest warrant issued on them as part of a civil case. Such an issuing is illegal. There was a case pending but, given that it was civil and not criminal an arrest warrant being issued became grounds for liability on the part of the county the warrant was issued from. That being known, I would think (this is in no way to be taken as legal advise) that issuing a subpoena when no case is pending would be a gross violation of the 4th Amendment which states:
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 searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
So, in this case I would think Google has a good leg to stand on. They are being asked to hand over information with no probable cause.
But I guess it's up to the courts to decide.
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
While I personally don't like what the US goverment has done in the name of "security" , this has nothing to do with this particular case.
"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.
I can't speak for anyone else, but with a lot of the stuff the U.S. government is doing lately, I'm more scared of it than I am of any terrorists.
I would never support a lot of the stuff they're doing, but it would seem a bit more legitimate if they could show any of this stuff was actually having an effect. So far they've cut back our freedom quite a bit, but to my knowledge they haven't prevented a single attack. It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Lisa tells Homer she has a rock that keeps tigers away.
Maybe not
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
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.
From the Google has been sued link in a previous comment:
The Feds are not after this data in the matter of a criminal case. They are not after the data because they want to know how many people are searching for porn. They're after the data because they want to use it to bolster their case for the Child Online Protection Act, an act which is a thinly veiled attempt to push anti-porn decency laws.
So, yeah, you might want to think of it as an abuse of power. Whether it's a legitimate abuse of power or not will probably become a matter for the courts very soon.
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
So you wouldn't give them tape of your security camera that you had on 24/7?
If they came to me and told me that they needed my tape, but they didn't have a reason why, I wouldn't give it over.
If I didn't, is that not doing evil?
It is not. They aren't asking for the tape to solve a crime. They are asking for it to see if maybe a crime could have been committed. That is evil. Failing to turn over your tape, when it is known that they know of no crime committed, can not be an evil action. This isn't an issue of them investigating a crime. This is a case of them looking to find if there might be a crime. It is no different than them asking to mount a camera in your bedroom, and another in your bathroom to watch 24/7 just in case someone breaks in, but they'll keep all the tape of you anyway beacause they can. The government is not allowed to subpoena companies on fishing expeditions when they don't know of a crime. Google is the only one to recognize that and spend the money to fight the government to remind them.
Thats my only point.
I believe your point was understood and, well, presumed to be irrelevant because it isn't a close enough analogy. You presume they are investigating a crime. They are not. They are just apparently randomly collecting data they have no legal right to demand.
Learn to love Alaska