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Google Avoids Surrendering Search Info
Mercury News has details of a San Francisco judge's decision that Google should give the DoJ some details on its search engine, but is not required to turn over records to the government. From the article: "McElvain emphasized the study would be more meaningful if it included search requests processed by Google, which by some estimates fields nearly half of all online queries in the United States. Ware concurred with the Justice Department on that point, writing in his order that 'the government's study may be significantly hampered if it did not have access to some information from the most often used search engine.' But Ware said the government didn't clearly explain why it needed a list of search requests to conduct its study, prompting him to conclude the Web site addresses would be adequate." Reaction to the news is available on the Google Blog.
So the government isn't allowed to troll the personal information of every American without the slightest probability of cause? What happened to the "If you're not a terrorist, you have nothing to hide" doctrine?
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
Now we just have to fight "if you're not doing anything bad, you've nothing to hide" -- in a country such as ours, that is heresy against our constitution and the people who live under it. Our general need of having privacy and not being exposed to the world is a natural one and must be protected at all costs. Those who seek to undermine this principal are very treacherous indeed.
-Drache Kubisuro
I'm a little confused why Google should legally be required to give the government anything. The government wants to do a study. Great. They can ask (or perhaps even offer to pay) for information they need, but why should they be able to get whatever they want, for nothing? Has Google commited a crime? Are they searching for evidence for a specific crime? Will the data they get from Google be used in any ongoing investigations? If no to all of the above, why should they get some information? They want to do a study, so what? Why should that mean Google has to give them anything it doesn't want to?
heh!
Could you imagine the implications if they had to turn this data over? Every minor study in the country would be trolling Google for user information. It would all be to "protect the children", of course. Nice to see a judge with a brain stem for the first time in awhile. Of course, no doubt soccer moms and politicians angling for reelection'll be complaining about this for awhile. "Google hates kids and supports child pornography!"
I can't wait. Talk about your no-win scenarios.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
The government doesn't do wiretaps.
It doesn't hold people without a trial.
It doesn't start a war without obvious cause.
It doesn't enrich the friends of the politicians.
Oooh.. Looky Looky! Look at that shiny thing over THERE.
How can George Bush get a subpoena in the first place. It's seems odd that a president can compel the private sector to divulge information in the pursuit of political policy.
Plus this is from the Executive branch which doesn't even make the law.
Let Congress pursue this if it wants. It has the responsibilty of making the laws, not the president.
The Constitution gives the president authority over the military and cabinet; the power to grant pardons and make appointments. And thats about it. Not sure where the Executive is coming from with this crap.
Why does Google hate children? Its not just that, The DoJ is trying to protect everyone from pornography why would anyone want to stop them? People this is one of the most morally destabilizing sins since attacking Americans and we should be adopting the approaches used in the Middle East particularly: Monitoring of all internet access by faith-based guides, gouging of eyes, and strict dress codes that stop the urge in the first place. Google I hope you're happy for all the lives you've destroyed through facilitating this evil.
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People have no problem forking over all of their personal information to the private sector. Credit card companies know what you buy and where. Amazon has statistical models that identify (often correctly), books you might like when you buy another book. Even power companies have models that can generally predict your power usage patterns by demographic and weather forecasts. But, oh, no, if the "government" gets all this stuff, its the end of the world. Ironically, denying the government access to information already freely shared in the corporate world only stacks the deck towards giving corporations the upper hand over government.
This is my sig.
Ironically, denying the government access to information already freely shared in the corporate world only stacks the deck towards giving corporations the upper hand over government.
;-) )
Maybe you weren't aware, but corps only have the power that the government lets them have. The government is vastly more powerful than any coporate entity and has essentially unlimited resources. If you make a list of organzations to be wary of the government is _always_ at the top of the list. The only thing that holds them back is accountability to the people (I won't debate how well that works
The private sector, at worst, sends you some junk mail and tries to sell you something. If they've processed their data correctly, then you probably are interested. The worst that can happen is that they don't process their data correctly and you get offers on stuff you're not interested in.
The government, on the other hand, can do a lot worse than send you some poorly-targeted advertisements. Being targeted as a potential terrorist can do tremendous damage to your life. You could lose your job, be incarcerated (without trial, incedentally), and possibly get your face blasted across the news.
If you want to determine if filters are protecting children from porn... 1. Go to google.com, search for "porn", etc. 2. Click on the first 1000 results to determine if each is evil. 3. Turn on your filtering software. 4. Go back to step 1, repeat for each filter you are interested in. Alternatively, waste tax payer money and look like an ass by paying lawyers to try to bully information out of private companies.
What I want to know is - Is there anyway that the government can use this and will get information (ie search requests) that is formed by people in countries other than the US.
i.e. not just getting info on its own citizens but on those from abroad simply because they may have used Google.com as opposed to Google.fr
It would clearly mess up the stats for the research wouldn't it.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Google's last line in their blog is really frustrating to me:
When a party resists an overbroad subpoena, our legal process can be an effective check on such demands and be a protector of our users.
The checks and balances system has failed us completely. To resist an overbroad subpoena, one must have both incredible financial strength as well as incredible legal strength. Companies much smaller than Google don't have either -- and the courts seem to accept any growth in government strength as a new standard whenever a smaller company just gives in to government requests.
This country was founded on an idea that the Federal government was to be set up to promote the general welfare of the people -- not by making a police state nor a welfare state. The Federal government was here to protect the rights of the people by making sure that the individual states didn't trample on these rights. Beyond that, the Federal government was given a few BASIC powers over the people and the state -- very very basic powers.
National security was a power for the government in its ability to defend the borders and call up the militia to keep out intruders. National security was NOT about policing the citizens of the country, this was left to the individual states to decide what is criminal and what is acceptable.
I am very mad that the average citizen doesn't see what has happened. Instead of having a federal government with very limited powers -- which can't be controlled by any amount of money -- we have a federal government with unlimited powers controllable by the highest bidder. If the highest bidder has any reason to restrain government, they can do so with the right legal aid. Yet the common man (the minority of 1) -- the most important facet of a free system -- has no power to do anything but fall victim to the wants of the masses. If the masses are ignorant, the minority of 1 will find themselves without any rights because no one came to their aid.
This has nothing to do with money, mind you. This only has to do with a federal government that is no longer a servant but a master, and the belief of the citizens that they're still able to stop Leviathan through voting.
I wrote a story about this late January. Let me quote myself to remind ya'all of some important insights into this story:
"While Google is reacting to the government request by refusing and resisting, other "leading search engines" seem less eager to protect their users right to privacy.
It should be pointed out that:
* Yahoo,
* Microsoft and
* America Online
have all turned records over to The Bush administration."
Be very aware of this. Google is the only search engine who put up a fight on this issue! The other "leading" search engines willingly, without question, handed over all information asked for. Google in their glory avoided giving out information, the rest didn't even put up a fight. Your Google searches may be protected - for now - but the rest of your searches are now "safe" in the hands of the US Justice Department.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
I also don't know where you got your impression that a military tribunal is better than a civil court. Why not then substitute all courts in the U.S. by military tribunals? What would you prefer: A court where you can choose your own defender, where you can appeal in case some mistake is made by the court, where the judges are independent from the government, and where the trial is public vs. an "enemy" officer as defendent, very limited and obscure ways to appeal if any, enemy officers as judges whose comrades you might have killed, and a secret trial in some military camp where nobody you know is allowed to attend? Do you really want to rely for justice on some TV-like bold gentlemen officers with balls of steel who have to act against the will of your warmongering commander-in-chief and compromise the former decisions of your comrades to displace and detain you for years? Good Luck.
I agree that the treatment by the U.S. military in general is not as bad how the terrorits treat U.S. soldiers or civilians, but that can not be used as an excuse to lower own standards. If you do lower the standards, you are not better than the terrorists.
You probably are not aware how Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have discredited the U.S. in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. You are no longer seen as The Good Guys (TM). For many Muslims you are now the bad guys, but for your friends you are now the Guys Who Don't Stick To Own Rules and give a fscking shit about the rules of the rest of the world.
You had the compassion and support of the world after 9/11, but you screwed up big time. Now the world looks at the U.S. troops in Iraq with a mixture of uneasiness and malicous joy, and even your best friends are investigating crimes the CIA committed in their countries or against some their citizen.
What a stupid waste of money and lifetime. The U.S. has the most talented people in politcial and social sciences, the greatest spin doctors, economical talent, the largest secret agencies, the greatest movie makers and military power that matches the power of the combined power of military in the rest of the world, but all this seems to be worthless and even counterproductive with an administration like the current one: The reputation in world ruined, terrorism in the world flourishing, the national deficit spiralling out of control, boosting national debt to historic dimensions, and an economy based on plundering and wasting irreplaceable natural resources of the world.
I hope the U.S. will manage to turn around 180 as soon as possible, but the whole world already will have to cope for decades with all the political, economical, environmental and social damage the U.S. have caused since the end of the cold war. The tragedy is that much of the damage done will turn out to be unrecoverable, but the sooner it starts, the better. Close Guantanamo today, and send the people there home. You will not be able to try them anyway, because all the evidence gained there will not be accepted in any court that respects the human rights.
Without order, nothing can exist. Without chaos, nothing can be created.