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Judge May Force Google to Submit to Feds
illeism writes "News.com is reporting that a California judge may force Google to give the feds at least some of the information it wanted. The feds may get some of Google's index of sites but none of the user search terms. From the article, the judge said he was 'reluctant to give the Justice Department everything it wanted because of the "perception by the public that this is subject to government scrutiny" when they type search terms into Google.com.'"
I've said it before, but I can't understand why the government needs this data when they already have search results from MSN, Yahoo, and AOL. One would think that statistical analysis should be able to give enough information to make or break their case already. What are they looking for from a MOE perspective?
I'm just not sure what they need this data for. Are the google search results that much different than MSN or "live.com"???
It isn't a "privacy issue" it is a 4th ammendment issue. Google has 4th ammendment rights. They are entitled to the protection from unwarrented searches. There is no crime being investigated in this request. This is the government trying to build a case where none exist.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
I'll bet Slashdot that I've figured the judge's legal reasoning out. The key is here, from TFA:
"Ware said that the reduced demand, coupled with the government's "willingness to compensate Google" for up to eight days of its programmers' time, had convinced him to grant the Justice Department at least some of what it had requested."
The government is claiming the data as private property to be taken for public use under the 5th amendment. I'm pretty sure this is unprecedented, anyone heard of anything like this before?