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Court Date Set for Google Lawsuit
Jason Jardine wrote to mention a C|Net story giving the date and location for Google's court case with the government. From the article: "Google's attempt to fend off the government's request for millions of search terms will move to a federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Feb. 27. U.S. District Judge James Ware on Thursday set the date for the highly anticipated hearing, which is expected to determine whether the U.S. Justice Department will prevail in its fight to force Google to help it defend an anti-pornography law this fall."
Wait a minute, I read the article and didnt find what law Google is breaking here. I am not even close to being a privacy advocate, in fact I usually am on the side of the government in issues like these. But I do not see what law Google is breaking.
This must not have to do with the "War on Terror", because I thought that Google couldnt even notify the press if that was the case.
Does anyone know more about this than simply what this article is saying?
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-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
This is about trying to revisit (show the need for) a law that has already been struck down.
So it's not about a law at all, it's about the governments attempt to show the need for a law.
And trying to use Google records for that is as relevant as using a /. poll for the same (or any other) purpose.
I hate how short sided people can be when they have their mind made up about something. Cooperating with the Chinese government was not as "evil" as the Slashdot crowd would like you to believe.
Google had two options:
1) Refuse China's request, therefore reducing the average Chinese citizen's access to information on the internet greatly.
2) Comply with China's request, therefore helping the average Chinese citizen access information while only restricting their access slightly. In addition, they can have a message that notifies them that sites are being blocked for political reasons.
In my opinion, it would have been "evil" of Google to not comply with China's request. It would be the same as refusing to give food to North Korea because you do not like their government. I do not think letting millions of people starve would be the best approach to overthrowing the North Korean government. I also do not think the best way to liberate China from their oppressive regime is to isolate them even further.
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-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
In one way I agree with you. But information - even if some of it is filtered - is power. Selling arms to the chinese goverment is obviously bad. Giving it's citizens at least some access is better than depriving them completely because you don't like the goverment. If the people can't see beyond the curtain at least a little bit, they don't know what they are missing and what they should be protesting about. (see North Korea)
Besides, Google being Google, it would not surprise me at all that now that they are in and paying lucrative taxes to the Chinese goverment they will try to keep pushing the boundries. If the stayed outside and managed to avoid the filtering, the Chinese goverment could easily block them completely. Now they are on the inside, the goverment has something to lose.
>>>> So it's not about a law at all, it's about the governments attempt to show the need for a law.
This post is one of the few to point this out. This is just a fishing expedition to provide data for - something. God knows what. Maybe the next step - lets go to one random residential neighborhood in Anytown USA and sieze all the computers. Who knows what we'll find! We promise not to arrest anyone - this time!
Aside from the privacy concerns, what business wants to be obliged to respond to random government requests for information, outside of that is already required by law and good business practices?
BTW Almost certainly the info Google might be forced to provide contains no identifiable information, so you can take your tinfoil hats off. Yahoo and AOL already complied, and aggregated the data and removed individually identifying information. Microsoft, good little quislings they are, had no comment.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"