Slashdot Mirror
Law Enforcement Requests for Net Data Multiply
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "It's not just phone companies grappling with reported potentially privacy-intruding requests from the NSA and other branches of government: Banks, Internet-service providers and other companies that possess large amounts of data on their customers say that police and intelligence agencies have been increasingly coming to them looking for tidbits of information that could help them stop everything from money launderers to pedophiles and terrorists, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'According to AOL executives, the most common requests in criminal cases relate to crimes against children, including abuse, abductions, and child pornography. Close behind are cases dealing with identity theft and other computer crimes. Sometimes the police requests are highly targeted and scrupulously legalistic, while other times they were seen by the company as little more than sloppy fishing expeditions. AOL says that most requests get turned down.'"
From the article: 'According to AOL executives, the most common requests in criminal cases relate to crimes against children, including abuse, abductions, and child pornography.
(insightful comment deleted during self-moderation)
Nice to see an honorable company like AOL standing up to the government.
Wait... wasn't the goverment supposed to be protecting the people from corporations?
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Law enforcement on the internet is really hard because there's not just one country in the world. How do you deal with a nigerian scammer if you live in France, or with a russian spammer if you're in Greece? There's not much anyone can do, in these cases.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Some say online pedophile activity, from illegal activity like real KP to mostly-legal stuff like cartoons and pedo hangouts, encourages real-world activity. Eliminate it and fewer adults will have sex with minors.
Others say it satisfies their need. Take it away and more adults will be in bed with young people.
My guess is it's a little of both.
Oh, forgot this:
"Anonymity of the air marshals in our No. 1 concern," Adams said. "But the boarding of air marshals is set by federal regulations, which Congress sets."
Talk about CONgress being the opposite of PROgress...
sighs....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Yes. The "catch and release" policy on pedophiles is sickening. I beleive they do this as a way to increase their power and money. I.e. As long as there is a problem, something "must be done" about it. What get's done then is the slow errosion of our rights and taxes.
Though the actions of pedophiles is sickening to contemplate, we should be careful about passing judgement. Obviously most of these people are being driven by some distorted sexual drive. I think the best thing to do is build a few micro-societies --small enclosed towns, where they must go live out their lives, and not be able to leave except under rare exception and supervision. This way, they can live productive lives, without children around to tempt them, and we do not have to foot the incarsiration bill.
:T:R:A:N:S:
even better would be to send those, paedofiles to places like iraq.
the used to send people like the to australia didnt they.
im sure bein in iraq would be a very good deterent from them commiting leud acts to the local kids.
New powers granted to the government under the Patriot Act mean that Washington can secretly access people's records from businesses without having to provide any notification or seek a judge's permission. Companies are in fact prohibited by the law from disclosing that they had received such requests. What on nature's blue earth is going on there? Who was it said that the gov needed revolution every 50 years or so just to sift out the rot? Decadent, insidiously decadent.
Why is anonymity such a concern? The air marshal should be openly armed and placed in the open where he can be seen by as many people as possible as well as see as many people as possible. Sure, this might make him a "target", but of all the people on the plane, he's the only one equipped to defend himself from an attack. Put his back against a bulkhead in a raised seat where he can see over everyone's head, and he should have no problem doing this.
TFA: "We have a very rigorous review process here," said John Ryan, AOL's vice president and associate general counsel. "Every request that comes in from law enforcement is vetted ..."
*ping* - * You have 1 new subpoena(s) *
[LokkAtMeAOL] lol
[Atturny1] lollerskates
[LokkAtMeAOL] read it..
[Atturny1] lol
[Atturny1] whos it from
[Atturny1] oops
[LokkAtMeAOL] WHAT WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
[LokkAtMeAOL] MY LETTERS WON'T GO SMALL HELP
[Atturny1] noob lol
[Atturny1] o man i deleted it
[LokkAtMeAOL] ME TOO
Now listen here sonny, back in my day we used teletypes to get on the internet. If we were very lucky they were 110 baud. To get to and from the server those bits had to walk 500 feet in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.
Kids these days, they have everything and just don't appreciate it.
Clinton and Nixon were one of the worst abusers of governmental information gathering. Both of them used the FBI to dig up dirt on their opponents. There's a story of Nixon extorting a contribution for his re-election by threatening the contributor with an IRS audit if the contribution wasn't large enough.
Both political parties decry the others abuse of governmental power but think it's just fine when they're the ones doing the abusing. Its behavior like that that drives some people to call for smaller government.
Send people who break the law to a lawless land? If they gave the skills and savvy to adapt, it might be just what they were hoping for.
Please turn over the identity of the poster with the initials "AC". He or she is implicated in over 10,000 threats against the government and Microsoft.
Are we independent beings? Or did we turn into something of a higher order, cells in a big organism, where the government is our brain?
And if it's the latter, can you deny the brain the right to check its body blood levels, have a haircut and take a bath?
What if the brain decides to make a suicide in the name of all of us?
There are already regulations they can use to get all sots of information.
Acording to Wikipedia it was passed in 1970 and it is used for certain transactions where the teller is supposed to fill out a Suspicious Activity Report that is transmited to the Finantial Crimes Enforcement Network under the Department of the Treasury, and yes, the treasury people share this info with other government agencies.
How many were search engines, robots run by police agencies, bots from 0wned machines, and other automated programs? How many are from people following misdirected links like this fake latest patch to Windows [Goatse pumpkin].
Of the remaining, how many are from people trying to figure out what all the hubbub is about or 14-year-olds who are about to get their computer privilages yanked when mom and dad find out?
The intersting number is not 30,000, but how many people are looking for illegal sites for illegal purposes week after week after week.
Sometimes the police requests are highly targeted and scrupulously legalistic, while other times they were seen by the company as little more than sloppy fishing expeditions. AOL says that most requests get turned down.
...why is this the job of the ISP? Why is a private entity that's deciding the legitimacy of these requests? If you want a good example of the intimacy between government and corporations in the US, this would be it. This should be subject to a legal review by someone in the judicial branch, not some private employee after corporate guidelines.
I see a disturbing trend in the US, based on this and other cases of domestic spying, guantanamo bay and more. That is the reduction of the judicial branch to be nothing more than courts to process individuals and corporations. The courts are not to interfere with what the government is doing or try to apply the law to the government.
The United States is moving away from the ideals it was founded on with a division of power into the executive, legislative and judicial branch. The judicial branch is being reduced to nothing more than a tool to enact the law without oversight of the other branches. The legislative branch represented by Congress has been granting more and more power to the executive branch to act without oversight both from them or the courts. The "Patriot" act is a good example of that. Even when there are issues that seem suspect at best, Congress don't want to touch the issue.
So two branches are in bed with each other, the last shoved out on the street. Few if any "checks and balances" within the government. What about the final check, the democratic oversight through the free press, public information and such? For one there's so much information that's no longer accessible, the media is completely unreliable (I've seen the stats on what Amercians think happened in the Iraq war) and third the people are so afriad there's a terrorist lurking at every corner to think it's okay anyway.
And just to invoke a certain law - remember how 'na' in nazism stands for nationalism, and that the terrorists serve much the same purpose as the jews did - according to the government, there's this large and dangerous network/conspiracy out to destroy your way of life. You'd better put all power in the hands of the government and chant "USA! USA! USA!". Or was that "Sieg Heil"?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Now there is a threat.... forget WMDs. The US wants to spread democrary, our version includes bombing the hell out of your country and occupying it for the next decade, or we'll just send the latest crop of rapists, murderes, thieves and pedos.
Good thinking.
So there.
Remember: It's not illegal to be a pedophile.
Again: It's not illegal to be a pedophile.
It is not illegal to be attracted to women younger than 18.
See, I would really like to see the de-stigmatization of normal, healthy, male attraction. I'd also like to see people remember that it is not criminal.
People seem to forget, you see: With all this talk about punishing pedophiles, when pedophilia itself is actually the norm, and in no way illegal.
I'm not saying we should take the "18" rule away. Rather, I believe we should make it stronger, by admitting (perhaps even celebrating) in the first place that men are attracted to younger women, de-stigmatizing it. With that acknowledged, you can then say: "But, there are these horrible effects if you do anything, so therefore..."
And, don't be shy: Make your case. Be realistic. Say: "While, sometimes, relationships between 16 year olds and 40 year olds works out- it's too difficult to sort out the cases where it does and does not work out. So, it's just illegal."
Have some maturity about this. It'll make our society a much more sane place.
If you pushed down the age of the label "pedophile" to, say, 13, you'll have a much greater pool of people in social opposition to pedophiles, and you'll mentally de-criminalize the vast majority of men.
Sometimes the police requests are highly targeted and scrupulously legalistic, while other times they were seen by the company as little more than sloppy fishing expeditions. AOL says that most requests get turned down.
Hmmm - phone records and postal mail are covered by law. It's against the law for the post office to turn over your mail, or the phone company to allow a wiretap, without due authority. Hence the EFF lawsuit against AT&T.
That is not the case (AFAIK) with, for example, credit card records (unless you've filled out the privacy request form). What about email and surfing records? "AOL says that most requests get turned down." Is that just their choice? Should it really be just somebody at AOL's choice? What if your ISP is run by one of the, "If you're not doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to fear" people? Do they have the right to just turn over your information?
As for the credit card records - those are already for sale, I think. Advertisers buy them, right? That's why casinos I've never been to send me stuff in the mail. So... if there's a bunch of data that is already legally available - what do you think the odds are that the gov't already has it? Good, I'd say. That is - I'd bet size cash the gov't already knows about my occasional trips to Las Vegas and my penchant for cheesy spy novel audiobooks.
Just my random tinfoil hat thoughts.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
If properly trained, you can kill or at least disable another human with a pencil in a few seconds. Air marshals must be anonymous or behind a protective wall so they have time to react.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Some people distinguish between child molestation and statutory rape and pedophilia and ephebophilia. But the fact remains that it is unpopular to advocate that rational thought or contemplation should be considered at all when dealing with such problems. From my limited experience, fewer people have a torches and pitchforks attitude toward even genocide than pedophilia.
English is easier said than done.
If by "real KP" you mean pictures or films of children engaged in sex, I don't think there is any such stuff. Even in the Freenet, which has been accused of being a pedophiles hangout, you don't see any authentic child pornography. The closest you get to child pornography in the internet are women with small breasts and shaved pubic hair who could be any age between 16 and 30.
This "pedophilia in the internet" meme is actually more disgusting than adults having sex with children. Because a true pedophile can only harm a limited number of people, whereas the people who keep bringing the fear of pedophiles are the meanest evil bastards one can find in the world. They want to turn the natural instinct of any normal human being to protect their children into a tool for domination.
Politicians who keep insisting on this subject are only trying to find a way to become dictators. Just check them, they are the same kind of people who insist on any possible safeguard against "terrorism" and people who keep calling file copying "piracy" and want to enforce DRM by legislation.
History has repeatedly demonstrated that you cannot open a door to censorship, because once you have it, who will be able to verify if a story was banned because it went against morality laws or because it told an embarassing truth about someone in power?
It's not illegal to be a pedophile.
It is not illegal to be attracted to women younger than 18.
Keep in mind that this has little to do with pedophilia. Pedophiles are primarily attracted to pre-pubescent children (12 or so and down). Hebephiles are primarily attracted to adolescent females (13-18 or so). Most heterosexual men have some level of sexual attraction to young females, but for most, this attraction is not their primary, and there is little or no emotional attraction. These men are not hebephiles (or pedophiles).
Your assertion is right, though, that pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia are not crimes. In fact, they do not at all depict any action. People who have these orientations (or "persistant, long-term patterns of sexual and emotional attraction" if you don't want to call them "orientations") should not be persecuted simply for that personal attribute (they are, but that's another debate). And people who sexually abuse other people should be legally persecuted without regards to whatever sexual orientation they may have (especially since we know that by far most child sexual abusers are in fact heterosexual men primarily attracted to same-aged women ("situational offenders"), and not "pedophiles").
what really needs to happen is multiple "versions" of Air Marshalls
1 the current Brass Band and Parade version
2 a covert/sleeper version (in this case would only act if the BBP one got taken out)
3 the MIF deep cover version (would be trained to do take downs quietly)
it would be a big surprise for #criminal if he found out that the cute little angel he just grabbed just happened to be an Air Marshall.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I am aiding Law Enforcement in cleaning up the internet. Keep it clean or you will be REPORTED!
Maybe if we sent them to North Korea instead?
Seriously though, the scenario where some "undesireable" sect of a society is to be scooped up and stuck on island/all killed/all put in jail/etc. is ignorant.
To quote Nietzsche: "Even the most harmful man may really be the most useful when it comes to the preservation of the species; for he nurtures either in himself or in others, through his effects, instincts without which humanity would long have become feeble or rotten. Hatred, the mischievous delight in the misfortune of others, the lust to rob and dominate, and whatever else is called evil belong to the most amazing economy of the preservation of the species. To be sure, this economy is not afraid of high prices, of squandering, and it is on the whole extremely foolish. Still it is proven that it has preserved our race so far."
Also, in the West, please try 'n make a distinction between Ephebophilia and true Paedophilia. At the very least it will make you sound smarter.
"The state is the coldest of all cold monsters, coldly it tells lies and the largest of these is, we the state are the people."
From: "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"
Except there could be 4 layers of 'ooooh scary criminul Bad Guys(TM)'- the first 3 used to expose the 3 layers of air marshalls and the final layer to do the biz
Sometimes the police requests are highly targeted and scrupulously legalistic, while other times they were seen by the company as little more than sloppy fishing expeditions. AOL says that most requests get turned down.
I understand if there is an official investigation and the much needed paperwork that is required by law. However never-ever should they hand over any information voluntaily.
I have worked at a Internet Provider in Belgium and either the police came with the paperwork, or they got noting. Once they came into the office, because one person thought they were for him prsonaly and they were escorted out again and had gotten no information wahtsoever.
An other time they tried social engineering their way through the helpdesk. Bzzzt. No go. I need a piece of paper or you get nothing.
However I am not sure how often they succeeded. Now you try to do the same. Social engineer infornation and then claiming later that you just asked and it was the problem of that individual that he gave up information.
These case should be looked at as hacking attacks and attempts to steal idetities. Unfortunatly all our nase already belongs to them.
Again: It's not illegal to be a pedophile.
It is not illegal to be attracted to women younger than 18.
I'm a little confused by your post. A pedophile is someone who is so threatened by secondary sexual attributes they are only attracted to the prepubescent. This is the apex of being fucked up. Anyone who doesn't understand this is a bozo.
Fuck you. Fuck you right in the ear canal. How do you like that?
I have been trolled.
Ok, the ip address for Anonymous Coward is 127.0.0.1
I like to build things and wire stuff together.
...stop eating fat burgers and leave MY freedom alone. 1 in 5 Americans dies of heart attacks every year. OTH as tragic as the deaths were on 911 for the families involved, compared to heart attacks, strokes, or auto accidents they are a drop in the bucket. If people would worry about the real killers and not curtail freedoms based on hype from demagogues the country would be in MUCH better shape,
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
My guess is it's a little of both.
So you're saying that child pornography has no net effect. Huh.
The argument, of course, goes that if pedophiles were to get organized and spread an idea that would preseve and even increase their access to child porn, it would be precisely the second one above. "No, really, it helps me."
That doesn't discredit it, of course, but it certainly raises suspicions...
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
So anyone who isn't an anarchist is brain-dead their entire life??????
That's not anarchism, it's american style democracy. We give rights and protections to the government, they don't give it to us. We're supposed to protect ourselves using government as a tool.
I would say over-use of question marks and poor knowledge of history is a good indicator of being brain dead...
If you are worried about dying....stop eating fat burgers and leave MY freedom alone.
...exactly which freedoms that our Constitution guarantees do you think are being threatened?
Oddly enough, it in no way surprises me that you seem to think that the only reason somebody might oppose terrorism in general is that they are afraid of personally dying. (Terrorism, it's not bad... unless it effects me, eh?) By the way,
As to terrorism vs heart attacks et.al., most people recognize the difference between the natural course of life, or the consequences of life style choices, and deliberate attacks by others. Individual Americans are free to live as they choose, and to take all manner of effective precautions against accidents or disease by themselves. That isn't really true about terrorist attacks. The only reason that there aren't more deaths and economic disruption from terrorism is that the US government actually takes steps to prevent it. Absent that, there would have been plenty more.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
No, no, this is NOT off-topic. You are NOT using your imagination and mental faculties.
You fail to see the clearly illustrative IRONIC point here: The government and law enforcement are reigning over people and reigning in individual control over privacy data and demanding more access.
The government agencies are trying to clean up the public and yet don't even have their OWN HOUSE in order. Have you missed the subtle irony?
Yet, they are NOT doing much to protect THEMSELVES from the obvious: an air marhall presenting credentials in a lobby or an air terminal in the presence of WHO KNOWS.
Be a little bit more judicious with your slasher god powers and pay attention to the links, however tenuous they may be....
Realize that the demand for "Net data" is not the ONLY avenue by which public and private people are at risk.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I agree 100%.. never have I violated the law and had sex with anyone underage. I am just stating that the attitude towards sex in this society needs some SERIOUS adjustment. I think it should be added to the bill of rights that if ONE TWO or more people agree on use of parts of thier bodies for pleasure, the LAW should STAY OUT OF IT!!!!
"But the fact remains that it is unpopular to advocate that rational thought or contemplation should be considered at all when dealing with such problems. From my limited experience, fewer people have a torches and pitchforks attitude toward even genocide than pedophilia." Agreed. I've tried to discuss whether the sex offender registry is 'fair' with my mother, and I can literally see the wall of disgust arise behind her eyes. It's amazing how well the idea of pedophilia can blind the public. That Amber Alert law slipped some things by. The Supreme Court, in 2002 and AGAIN in 2004, decided that the banning of 'simulated child pornography' in the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 was unconstitutional. Quote from wikipedia: "The majority ruling stated that "the CPPA prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production. Virtual child pornography is not 'intrinsically related' to the sexual abuse of children."" Funnily enough, in 2003 - between 2002 and 2004, note - President Bush passed the Amber Alert law, a law that banned simulated child pornography. People have been convincted for drawing *cartoons* of children having sex, even though the Supreme Court said that was unconstitutional. I imagine this slipped by because the rest of the bill was just so public-friendly and so anti-sex offenders. Oh, it also sanctions wire-tapping and the watching of 'other communications' in child abuse/kidnapping/sex cases. I wonder if the language of the above Amber Alert point would permit a police group to demand records from AOL and then take them to court if they refused.
Should searches you type in be considered public records or somehow less protected? Google isn't your lawyer. I'm all for privacy laws, but there has to be a middle ground somewhere.
I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but its NOT a troll. Its a serious question and a real world situation. I've already put on my virtual gnomex bunker gear and SCOTT pack (it matches my real gnomex bunker gear and SCOTT pack) and am "fully encapsulated" so don't bother with the flame throwers.
Here's a valid concern --
I'm looking through my web logs tonight, and in particular I'm browsing the search engine queries that bring people to my site. I'm curious about such things. Anyway, two of the queries really bugged me. These are just today over the course of a few hours. One was "12 year old girl pics" and the other was "preteen 9 - 12 girl pics".
I had posted a blog entry with pics of my 12 year old kicking butt on the soccer field. There's nothing about these that would invite tampering or whatever, they snapshots from a distance and I'm sure both these "people" will be dissapointed. The fact is this blog entry generated two disturbing hits within just the few hours that I was looking at. Ugh.
So, what's a DAD to do with information like that? Don't answer, its not your decision -- It was a rhetorical question.
The important question is, what should Google do with information like that? Does someone using a search engine like that have an expectation of privacy? If so, why?
On what basis can using a search engine come with an expectation of privacy? When search on the net, I have the assumption that there is no privacy. Were I to really want privacy I suppose I could use an anonymizer, but I don't so I don't (if you see what mean).
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
But the AoC laws don't in any way protect kids in way shape or form from anything whatsoever. Not from abuse, nor from having to give evidence in a trial. What those laws are doing is making criminals of kids as young as 10 who are placed on a sex offenders register for LIFE. Also quite often the child is happy with the relationship, so the destruction of that relationship causes substantial mental trauma. If a relationship, even a sexual relationship, between an adult and a child is not abusive or coercive, who is being hurt? Most of the time, even for quite young kids, genuinely consensual sexual interaction is educational, not harmful. In many instances it's even beneficial, especially for a child who comes from an abusive home and needs to feel wanted.
By the way you asked: "By the way, ...exactly which freedoms that our Constitution guarantees do you think are being threatened?"
m endment04/
Specifically the 4th amendment of the bill of rights to the constitution which states:
" 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."
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/a
Ubiquitous spying is an absolute violation of our ability "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects..." Does that answer your question specifically and clearly about which freedoms are being violated by the war on terror in general and by listening in our phone calls without a warrant or any supervision what so ever, data mining our calling records without any supervision, and collecting information on our internet usage? What part of "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Searching for '9-12 girl pics' or whatever isn't illegal and isn't even incriminating.
There is an entire industry of non-porn sites out there that serve up nude or non-nude pictures of young girls not engaging in sex or lewd exhibition of their genitals, thus totally legal. Simple nudity is not illegal and you can find photo albums with nude children in most Barnes and Nobles. See childsupermodel.com for example. Sure there are forces who would love to shut it down but it is Constitutionally protected. BTW child porn nearly was Constitutionally protected in a split decision in which Justice Oconner was the deciding vote the ban was allowed to stand. THe dissenting opinion used the " If the first amendment means anything it is that government has no business telling a man what films he may watch or what books he may read in his home." Well Justice O'conner isn't around anymore and there is a chance that in the future child pornography decision could be reversed believe it or not.
Does someone using a search engine like that have an expectation of privacy? If so, why?
I believe they do, because no matter how revolting the search terms that lead someone to your site may be, you can never expect to stop someone from looking at normal pictures, nor should you be able to.
Perhaps there were a few sickos looking at pictures of girls playing soccer and getting off on it. Perhaps not. There may have been people watching in person while the game was being played and having perverse, impure thoughts. We will never know, because we can't read minds. Nor should we be able to. It may be very upsetting to you as her father, but your daughter remains unharmed whether people were having perverse thoughts or not.
With all of this pedo-scare in the media/culture recently, I get the feeling that people are just aching to prosecute thought-crimes. Bad thoughts do not necessarily = bad deeds. If you start using search terms to back up investigations (or to base investigations on), search engines will become sanitized, useless husks of what they once were. I don't want to be paranoid every time I type in a search term (for instance, looking for perfectly legal Girls Gone Wild videos could easily be misconstrued with the wrong terms).
Were I to really want privacy I suppose I could use an anonymizer, but I don't so I don't (if you see what mean).
Do you mean that if you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide?
The reason that people get more pissed off about pedophiles is because most people actually have kids. Most people in America aren't too worried about being victims of genocide. Objections to genocide are intellectual and moral. Objections to pedophilia are visceral, emotional, and moral.
The "catch and release" policy on pedophiles is sickening... I think the best thing to do is build a few micro-societies
Good call. We should quarantine all those sickos who are attracted to teenage girls and keep them away from the rest of our virtuous society.
All those perverts lusting after nubile 16 year-old girls. Disgusting.
A Good Conspiracy Theory (TM) frequently *IS* the most obvious answer.
But what is the question?
A simple challenge for those who believe child porn is all over the net; google the term "naked boys" and see how many pages of links you have to plough through before you find a site that actually has a pic of a naked boy under the age of 16 on it. Betcha don't find one...
... Solo masturbation clubs, gay as teen sex, naked boys mature home pages amateur. ...
... 12 years [TXT] lolitas 12 years [TXT] kiddie porn lolita pic [TXT] illegal ... ROMPL BBS porno [TXT] Young naked Boys.com [IMG] genie [TXT] free little ...
Narrow your search. Add "illegal" to your search and your results go from 1.7 million to 121,000. Add "kiddie porn" and it goes down to a managable 10,400. The first page had a couple of xxx sites that want you to think they have kiddie porn but probably don't:
Double anal gangbang < anal fuck slut
Indian porn xxx chinese kiddie porn: black women swimsuit models.
and
[lost souls]
The 2nd looks like a fiction/story site, distasteful but perfectly legal in the USA.
I didn't visit and I'm not providing the links. If you are an FBI agent feel free to look these guys up and take "appropriate action."
Unless Google is agressively filtering them out, I bet somewhere in the first 1,000 hits, you'll find something illegal.
Or, maybe it was someone looking for specific pics to use in a marketing campaign for a girl's sports program. Or a lonely 12-yo girl, looking for images of other kids like her. There was nothing sexual in the terms you listed - you might find those exact words in a talent agency facebook. But you're been conditioned by the media to assume the worst possible motives.
My guess is it's a little of both.
So you're saying that child pornography has no net effect. Huh.
I'm saying we don't know. They effects may cancel each other out or one or the other may dominate. To make matters more confusing what was true 5 years ago may not be true today and what is true today may not be true 5 years from now. It may be that where KP is illegal, those who do access it use it as a crutch and children are protected, but if it became legal, many more might look at it and start craving juvenille flesh, resulting in more children harmed. Or vice-versa, resulting in a safer world. We simply do not know.
"I believe they do" -- is not a basis for a legal or moral reasoning behind having an expectation of privacy in a transaction over a public network using a publically open network (which I would equate to a walk-in retail storefront).
The "If youre not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument doesn't fly here. I don't believe in it as a valid argument for or against anything. My statement is that "I have nothing to hide so I don't bother trying to hide anything, and if I did have something to hide I would expect to have to make the effort to hide it."
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
... as a society we make laws. Our decision through those laws has been that the right to watch what you want is outweighed by the potential and real dangers that our market driven society creates when you give monetary value to something that can be negative for the people who produce it -- who are not yet of majority age and not considered capable of providing their consent.
I'm not going to debate morals and laws. The two are only marginally connected. I found the searches offensive, personally. That's also not something for debate.
The question is, do you have a right to expect that what you request online in a search engine is private? If so, why?
I say using a search engine is no more private then walking into an open retail store and asking for a product or opinion. You have no right to expect or require the store not to tell anyone what you asked for. They are not bound by any legal or even moral code to do so. In fact, if you were to enter a gun shop and ask for the best sniper rifle and a book on assassination, they may have a legal (and I believe they have a moral) responsibility to do something about it. The retail clerk is not your clergy, priest, doctor, lawyer, or accountant.
So, what makes Google different from any other retail establishment in the eyes of the law?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
This is probably a troll, despite your claims otherwise, but in case it's not--
You are under no obligation to publish a blog, and that goes doubly so for posting pictures of your underage kids. You're the one putting your private life and your daughter's image out there for anyone to see. There are plenty of ways to make a subscriber-only blog or password protected photo albums. Hell, it's pretty easy to keep your site out of search engines in the first place. How can you genuinely claim concern over what traffic Google brings to your site, when you're the one who created the content? And what does this have to do with government agencies pressing corporations for private information anyway?
Its not different. Its just that google can't be forced to give over its records without a court order. They are THEIR private records and so are protected just like mine and your personal private records are.
If google wants to give over the records they are free to do so but can not be compelled to do so. If they decide to do so then people will just use other search engines perhaps one who promises not to do so, and then google will go out of business or be stuck in a lower position like yahoo, which only ignorants use.
Cough ,
: zip code and address please : for what ? : just for our database, so we can serve you better *wink* : how do i know you'd never use this for 'no good' : that's silly, we'd never do that. why would we want to do harm to our customer base ? : that sounds reasonable : of course it does, we love you long time.
Corporate America
Avg Joe American
Corporate America
Avg Joe American
Corporate America
Avg Joe American
Corporate America
now, refer back to TFA.
"Freedom and Justice for All" is a registered trademark of The United States Govt Inc. Not available in all areas.
I have three points to make about this comment.
1) Information posted to a public blog is not private, "DAD" has no expectation of privacy.
2) I am not sure about the plausibility of this request. How does "DAD" know what terms were used by a search engine to get to his blog? Google tells him?
3) The problem with this example (if it is possible), is that criminal intent is somehow being derived from the wording of the search terms. I do not want laws or prosecutors or the government defining illegal acts for behaviour that falls into this gray area.
One other point:
If "DAD" shows that the searchers are indeed child molesters/perverts/whatever, isn't the publisher of the picture guilty of publishing child-porn?
If you want to keep something private, DON'T PUBLISH IT ON A WEB SITE!
Not being an idiot, I'm aware of not publishing things I want kept private. The point isn't the I published completely benign pictures. The point is in less than the space of an hour, at least two people walked into my "public storefront" and yelled out "Hey, I'm looking for something that's been determined by legal process to be against the law. Do you have that here?"
Is that statement, unasked for, private?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Wrong. They were looking for pictures of girls. You do not know their real motive. That is not illegal, no matter how much your paranoid, overprotective, media-frenzied mind would like to think it is.
Do you ever bring your daughter out in public, or are you too afraid that perverts are looking at her with a lecherous gaze?
"12 year old girl pics"
and "preteen 9 - 12 girl pics"
are against the law?
The primus author of the Declaration Of Independence:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson
Matthew
-- the syntax is as you describe. Nonetheless, the point of the question remains valid. Care to answer it?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
This is interesting, and the first I've ever heard of this. Do you have a reference for that? I can't find anything on the official gov't site about it (although that's hardly a surprise).
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
A reference for all interested:
h tm
....
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/April/03_ag_266.
Quote:
"Problem #3: Past Legal Obstacles Have Made Prosecuting Child Pornography Cases Very Difficult. Last year, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a federal law that criminalized the possession of "virtual" child pornography, i.e., materials whose production may not have involved the use of real children. This decision has made it immeasurably more difficult to eliminate the traffic in real child pornography.
Solution #3: Strengthen the Laws Against Child Pornography in Ways that Can Survive Constitutional Review. Among other provisions, the bill will:
Revise and strengthen the prohibition on 'virtual' child pornography. "
That doesn't make the worry rational, however, considering how often it is focused on the idea of child predators as inhuman beings existing outside society. It's kind of like a fear of flying: people who are afraid to fly are generally at ease driving, despite the fact that driving is a far greater hazard. Likewise, people are afraid of child predators despite the fact that they pose a far less risk than those with whom parents are at ease leaving their children, that is, friends and family.
English is easier said than done.
I'll ignore the troll 'over overprotective parent' tag. As a parent of three, I find the term redundant.
Yes, I know more about how the scary intraweb works than the average user. I've made a living on my own, solo, as a consultant and conference speaker on the subject for fifteen or so years without a big daddy corporation to look out for me.
You're the first in this chain to actually address the question. You say most people who don't know how computer networks work have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That's an answer, but limited. I'm asking why should they expect privacy when they're dealing with a business.
I'm not saying Google is required to turn it over, only that they're not required to NOT turn it over. Why would Google keep them private?
1. A legal reguirement? I see none, do you?
2. Altruism? Google seems honestly to make an attempt at doing business in a moral way, but that's a fairly thin line for an end user seeking privacy to count on.
3. Competition? Will end users really avoid Google if they feel these records are available to ? I doubt it. Some will, surely. I doubt market share would really drop though. Those who care most already know that there is no LEGAL requirement so they are not actually safe.
You tell me.
Oh, and for the record, I do not fear for my children's safety as a result of this or any other computer search -- it doesn't change the fact that I am disturbed by searches that have a reasonable chance of being what I consider disturbing.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Let the Deconstruction begin!
the news
This is evidence of nothing, given this administration's miserable failures at securing terror convictions using due process of law, and their reprehensible practise of inhumane detainment of humans who have not been properly convicted in an equitable judicial process, in blatant violation of the 4th, 5th, 8th and 13th Amendments to the US Constitution.
The trials of Sami al-Arian and Sami al-Hussayen immediately stand out:
Originalize this:
concrete
"US lists 10 foiled terror plots", BBC News, October 7, 2005
On further analysis:
John Diamond and Toni Locy, "
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron