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Justice Dept. Rejects Google's Privacy Concerns
Philip K Dickhead writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the Justice Department rejected Google's concerns over a Bush administration demand to examine millions of its users' Internet search requests on privacy grounds. The department claims this will help revive an online child protection law that the Supreme Court has blocked, by proving that Internet filters are not strong enough to prevent children from viewing pornography online. A federal court hearing is scheduled in San Jose, California, March 13th."
All of you who use Google Desktop might want to uninstall it, just in case the "DoJ" starts going after that data next.
My sig is too lon
Can the government really go after Google for aiding Chinese censorship and for NOT aiding US censorship AT THE SAME TIME?
I saw plenty of nudie pics and porn as a child and I'm pretty well-adjusted as an adult. Yes, seriously. I'm getting pretty sick of government types thinking they can run our lives better than we can.
...wait, I thought censorship was bad and UnAmerican(TM)?
Only if you're some sort of commie liberal! In this post-9/11 world, UnAmerican is anything that criticizes the government, and anything the government does in violation of the Constitution and its amendments is kosher as long as it's to protect Americans from Evil People.
Really, though, who's surprised at this. Their stated agenda here was to invade privacy to bolster a case for overturning a Supreme Court decision that prevents them from invading privacy... for the children, of course. Considering how much this administration has stacked every single non-partisan agency with as many political operatives as possible, it's no real surprise that the DoJ would rule in its own favor.
Hell, even without that, it's no surprise that the DoJ would rule in its own favor. They've never been the most objective of agencies.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Since when did the government start caring about our children. I have a simple solution, Don't leave your child on your computer with internet access alone. When they are old enough to browse and be responsible by themselves, they are old enough to look at porn.. BUSH ADMIN, quit wasting resources on BS and fix the real issues at hand.. Like our Deficit, the war, social security and countless other items. Leave the parenting up to us.
So... exactly what information is these representatives of the US Government after? The fact that people search for porn? If they remove any identification of who, and thus what, the person is... what's going to tell them that any given search conducted by a wide-eyed innocent (queue Bush jokes) vs. a consenting adult?
Once more, a nice display of reverse logics! If I, as a parent, fail to keep track of what my child is doing and/or looking at, I find someone to blame. And the federal government is backing me up on this one.
If you have a small child, you, as a parent, should be aware of what kind of content your child has access to. Preview television shows, whitelist certain webpages. If you leave smutty magazines lying around the house, do you blame the editor if a child finds them and looks through it?
Besides, sex is a natural thing, use education to enable your child to discern right from wrong, instead of keeping the whole subject hidden from him/her until marriage.
Google has nothing to do with this battle the right-wing christians wage against the porn industry. I'm not saying that pornsites should advertise all over the net, or judge porn altogether, but the federal government is taking a very one-sided approach in this matter. The net has always been free, and it should remain that way. I agree with Googles view on this matter.
Or maybe I'm missing something?
Sadly, you're missing something.
Their conclusion will not be "Filters are a dead end, let's give up and throw them out."
Their conclusion will be, "Filters are not absolutely 100% bullet-proof!!! Our kids are looking at PORN ON THE INTERNET!!! Won't someone PLEASE think of the children!", after which they will be free to re-pass a controversial, struck-down-by-the-courts censorship law restricting Internet porn. Sure, this will be about as effective as a law restricting the sharing of copyrighted mp3s, but even so, it's kind of sketchy that they're making these sorts of laws in the first place...
I am the man with no sig!
You're close but not quite on the money. This has wedge issue written all over it. Much like gay marriage in 2004 (and soon to be gay adoption in 2006), this is an issue to draw out the single-issue conservative voters to the polls. The point isn't necessarily to win this battle, though that'd be feather in the cap of the Republican Party, as it is to have the fight in the first place.
The majority of American's wouldn't support a conservative agenda on the environment, healthcare, and corporate welfare, but they will support an agenda about terrorism and "protection of values." This is known as a "wedge issue." It's designed to drive a wedge between the conflicting loyalties of swing voters to force them to choose between two different positives and to draw out partisans from the woodwork who couldn't care enough to vote about economic policy issues.
Bringing back up net filtering and monitoring gives the Republicans another chance to decry "liberal judicial activism" in a bid to install more pro-executive power, pro-business judges. As a bonus, they get to legislate morality and provide an in for more monitoring of citizens. In case you don't recall, sexual scandals are just about the only scandals that have any traction in the media any more, so the opportunity to catch a current or future politician looking at porn is a great tool for whoever's in power, and it's even better if your opposition consider using that power against your people to be wrong.
This is just a win-win fight for the Republican Party no matter how it plays out.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Children need protection from porn, because it would be too bad if they would discover their sexuality on a normal speed which coupled with a good sexual education program can significantly reduce the number of underage pregnancies, on the other hand the administration encourages and is fine with the military recruiting from schools, sharing schoolchildren's data in a huge opt-out database and sending these kids to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Clearly, porn is the danger here. Think of the kids!
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Stopping porn movies altogether is the only way to keep his daughters from eventually starring in one.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm reminded by Ashcroft (Bush's last Attorney General -- remember him?) covering up the statue "The Spirit of Justice" with curtains so that its one bare breast would be hidden.
I thought that that was rather nicely symbolic.
I rather figured at that point that things were probably going to keep going downhill.
I like to consider the implications of that.
It means that the British (who have *toplessness* on their television) are all hopeless perverts. Cultured? Certainly not. At least, they certainly don't give a damn about their children. In the eyes of the Bush Administration, that is.
The British *invented* Victorianism and decided that it was a bad idea long ago, and moved on. We still haven't figured it out. I'm reminded of the Imperial unit system.
We invaded Afghanistan, and encouraged women to throw off their burkas afterwards. We freed them from their social norms and gave them ours, because ours are clearly best.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Or *maybe* it's because Chinese law and social norms state that the Chinese government gets to censor. US law and social norms state that the current administration doesn't get to demand data of random companies (without criminal investigation or other justification) to push their partisian issues.
1) Much of Google's assets are their search data.
2) Google has a reputation to protect. If they don't draw a line in handing over data, people cannot trust that their searches are private. If I can go use a search engine based on Sealand instead of Google because that one is private because it doesn't fall under US law, then obviously I'm going to use that. Google is protecting their customer.
Man, you Google-haters *love* to try to use the "but teh chinks is evil!" argument.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Think of the Children!!! Think of my poor child!!!
At the tender age of 15, my child was brutally and without warning assailed by Janet Jackson's breast during the superbowl. This callous and unjustified act of forcefull thrusting the wide world of filthy perverted sex upon my innocent offspring forever changed the way I looked at this issue.
My child, while on the internet can be exposed to images of the naked breasts, and even obscene images of female genitalia. This is a shocking and tramatic expierience for any child, and I resent having to deal with the fallout from what some people like to call "excercising their rights". There is no excuse for ludity on the internet. None!
I fully support the governments efforts to protect my child from the shocking plethora of scandel and depravity that exists on the world wide web.
I support this for my child! She deserves better!
May the Maths Be with you!
May Peace Prevail On Earth