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Judge May Force Google to Submit to Feds

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lubricious-embankment dept.

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.'"

18 of 418 comments (clear)

  1. Less than originally expected by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At least the judge is favouring less than the gorvernment originally requested, still... I feel this is again the over-eager government wiping its feet on the flag and blowing its nose in the Constitution.

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    1. Re:Less than originally expected by Tweekster · · Score: 5, Informative

      if you read the article you would notice that google does not oppose the extremely limited amount of info requested. and if the govt would have asked in the first place they wouldnt have gone to court.

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    2. Re:Less than originally expected by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Insightful
      How much does anyone want to wager that Dubya has never even read the entire text of the Constitution?

      What George W. Bush really needs is a practical lesson in checks and balances: people need to make sure they're registered to vote and then, this fall, go out and vote against the Republican congressional candidates. Even assuming their Democratic replacements aren't any better, losing a few seats will help limit the damage that Bush and the Republicans can do.

      We've had a disastrously planned war, spending increases that make the Democrats look like cheapskates, a massive deficit, an incompetent response to Katrina, a gulag in Cuba, they're chipping away at our civil liberties, and they're destroying the checks and balances that have kept this country running for the past two hundred years. All of this has happened on the Republican party's watch. With complete control of Congress and the White House, the Republican Party has been free to do whatever it pleases, and the result of implementing their ideas has been a disaster for this nation.

      At worst, voting the Republicans out would result in total gridlock, with the government unable to do anything. But that would be a massive improvement over the way the country is currently run.

  2. Reluctance? by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...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.

    Perhaps he should be more reluctant because it's against the US constitution.

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    1. Re:Reluctance? by conJunk · · Score: 5, Informative
      from tfa:
      The outcome will determine whether the Justice Department will be able to use Google search terms in a social science research project that will be used this fall to defend an antipornography law. The Bush administration argues that criminal sanctions in the 1998 law--which has been placed on hold by the courts--are more effective ways to shield children than antiporn filtering software.

      from teh beeb

      Essentially it wants data from search engines to prove how easy it is to stumble over porn on the net. If it can prove this the result might be onerous regulation for many websites.
      In court documents the US government said it had tried to generate the same information using the Internet Archive website but did not get the results it wanted.

      essentially, the doj wants this data to make a point about child porn online. they are not investigating any violations of any law. this is not an issue where a warant even *could* be issued

      rather, they are trying to make a point regarding aspects of the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which the ACLU has successfully blocked in court. the government wants figures to support it's position in that case, but those figures don't exist, so they're demanding that google *give* them the raw data they need to make the argument they want to make

    2. Re:Reluctance? by penix1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

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    3. Re:Reluctance? by Anonymous+Struct · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm opposed to it. It's not the federal government's job to make it hard for kids to search for porn on the internet. It's also not their job to make sure kids eat the right food and avoid playing violent video games. And that's coming from a guy who leans left.

  3. Why does the government need this data? by bcarl314 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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"???

    1. Re:Why does the government need this data? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're correct, the government doesn't need this information.

      What the government does desire, however, is established precedent which permits it to seize information from any company, even when no actual crime is being investigated.

  4. sad really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful


    for the GOV to be undertaking this blatent fishing expedition (still convinced the gov is on the right path ?)

    of course if Google had stopped logging every bit of shit that goes over the pipe this problem wouldnt exist, as they say "you have made your bed, now sleep in it"

  5. How about zero search queries? by Zarel · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the article:
    ...the Justice Department...demands a "random sampling" of 1 million Internet addresses accessible through Google's search engine, and a random sampling of 1 million search queries submitted to Google in a one-week period. During negotiations, the Justice Department narrowed its request to 50,000 URLs and said it would look at only 10,000. It also said it wanted 5,000 search queries and would look at 1,000. 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.
    So the reduced demand somehow makes it okay to violate first-Amendment rights?
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  6. I just don't get it by phoenix.bam! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What standing does the government have to even ask for this information?

    I see no reason whatsoever that google should be forced to provide for the request other than the DOJ saying "Can we see your information?"

    No law has been broken, no crime is under investigation... Can they come to my house next and ask to see the last 1,000 things I searched for? Why can they do that to google? This is insane and that judge is a moron.

  7. Time to move servers again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    No problem, Google can just move their servers to China to keep them safe from a government that thinks it needs to track every citizens activity.

  8. They're justifying it under the takings clause! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  9. What's the point, really? by illspirit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The whole reason the DOJ wants the records is to prove that filtering software isn't as effective as COPPA, no? So how exactly is any number of random queries or page indices going to prove this? Even if the random sample was all hardcore porn pages and search strings, there's no way of telling if it was a child who did the search (or viewed the page). And if they're not asking for IP addresses (which they claim they're not), there's no way to know if a search or page even originated in this country, right? So, in theory, the data the DOJ is after might contain the results of people looking at porn in other countries in which it isn't illegal.

    So, basically, they want to prove that someone, somewhere, might be breaking a US law, possibly in a country where said law doesn't apply, as evidence to support said law. Brilliant. What's next? Since other countries allow boobs on TV, we should ban TVs here?

  10. Eh.. by neurokaotix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Before anyone spreads anymore misinformation, it's not to stop child pornography. It's to stop children from looking at porn, which, anyone with half a brain can tell you, is impossible because of how the Internet works. There is no identification layer to the 'net. The only way these extremely prude, old ass ignorant senators are going to be able to stop kids from looking at porn (and we all know they don't like porn at all, for anyone anyway) is to simply ban porn sites. Or forbid the viewing of any pornographic material to anyone who hasn't used a credit card to pay for it (this kind of indentifying the person as being at least over 18). The government is out of control. The time to start bearing arms and getting ready for the revolution is now.

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  11. 1776 by the_REAL_sam · · Score: 5, Insightful


    "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

    A FASCIST in power is a tyrant, right?

    The administration's CLAIM is that they want to sort the data to find the child porn downloaders. But all that means is they would like to be able to search in a blanket way, without first meeting the requirements set forth in the bill of rights.

    From Article 4 of the Bill of Rights:
    "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."

    The article spells it out: blanket searches are unconstitutional b/c they do not spell out the particular place to be searched. Just saying "there's got to be SOMETHING on that server that's illegal just isn't good enough.

    On those grounds, conducting blanket evesdropping on server(s) that THEY DON'T OWN is completely unconstitutional; furthermore, there is already a supreme court ruling which says they cannot perform ANY evesdropping on THEIR OWN servers. So they couldn't "work around it" by putting "snoopy routers" at various checkpoints.

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  12. Re:What happened to less government regulation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sadly that party is either out of power, or no longer exists, or is too small.. Since Reagan's time, the Democrats have been the party of fiscal responsibility and minimum regulation in your personal life. The Libertarian party is the only party that ever really wanted less government regulation overall.