Slashdot Mirror
Feds Block EFF Look at Google/DoJ Contacts
netbuzz writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to know all there is to know about contacts between Google and a Justice Department official involved in a highly charged 2006 government-snooping dispute that ensnared the search giant. That DoJ official, Jane Horvath, was subsequently hired by Google last year as senior privacy counsel. The DoJ has refused for six months to release public information about the matter being requested by EFF."
duh!
Isn't that just a fancy way of saying "I'm Guilty"?
All I see is a link to some news article about Google hiring this DoJ person. Nothing at all to an article suggesting that the USDoJ is stonewalling EFF as suggested by the summary.
Enquiring minds wanna know!
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
No click link. Bad for health.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
If you two don't knock it off I'll huff this kitten. So help me, I will!
Now you two go outside and finish doing whatever you're good at.
Damned kids. Get off of my lawn!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
There's a really bad smell around here all of a sudden. That deal, maybe? Google could clear things up pretty fast with a bit of disclosure.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Unless it meas profit!
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
I'm all for privacy. Which is why I think the guy is totally justified. If someone asked about MY contracts at work, I wouldn't feel that compelled to tell them, either. And I'd have no obligation to. It'd be different if he was actually working in the governmental capacity, because then the people are indirectly sorta the guy's boss. But when it's just him privately being hired, it's none of our business from any moral or legal obligation sort of standpoint.
Google, though, would do well from a PR standpoint to at least formulate a response explaining what seems like a very odd decision. I'd appreciate it at least, since this sort of thing makes me feel pretty nervous. I don't really search for anything more exotic than cake recipes, technical documentation, or going through Wiki adventures where you start with wondering what the actual difference between a vegetable and fruit is and end up reading about quantum physics for some reason, but government snooping through stuff without cause is a bad thing and quite against the constitution those cool guys 200 years ago wrote up. Google has a good track record for not doing evil things, but still...
It is a service that can be revoked if you don't follow the operating companies' procedures.
That aside, it's kind of hard to follow an airline's procedure when it isn't the airline's procedure. This would all be fine and dandy if it were a security service payed for by all of the airlines that service the terminal with agreed upon rules. Instead, we have a government agency paying for an outside security service proscribing, or at least pretending not to notice, arbitrary rules and procedures. The problem occurs before you even have a chance to interact with the company in question, so you never even have an opportunity to be contrary to their policies.
Anyway, I don't see how we arrived at thinking this is a 5th Amendment issue. The EFF has requested to see e-mail correspondence between Google and DoJ officials via the FOIA. This isn't a 5th Amendment issue because the EFF is seeking information pertinent to public officials carrying out the duties of their publicly accountable position. They have been met with silence for the past 6 months so now the EFF is suing so they can see what actually occurred during the period when the DoJ was seeking to subpoena Google for every single query entered into the search engine over a one-week period and the subsequent scale back to asking for only 5,000 random entries. The EFF wants to make sure that information from Google was not handed over to the DoJ illegitimately due to privacy concerns. They also want to make sure that Jane C. Horvath, the DoJ's Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer at the time, is not giving information to the DoJ while now working as Google's Senior Privacy Counsel.
If not the Democrats, what ? Are you advocating doing nothing and hoping things get better by themselves ?
Or my right for an abortion? Or my right to have a warrant issued before I am spied on by my government?
I'm wondering what rights the Democrats would take away from me...
Blar.
Can we maybe start referring to them as just "The Department"?
-- Terry
Let's say the backhoe worker makes $20/hr + benefits. You can figure his rate to be somewhere around $40 an hour (liberal estimate) when you figure in benefits. Lets say the time difference using a backhoe vs. 20 people with shovels is roughly 2:1 -- a very conservative estimate -- so if it takes 2 weeks with shovels, the backhoe operator gets it done in a week.
Let's say the unskilled workers make $8/hr a piece, no benefits. They end up costing somewhere around $12/hr a piece once you figure in FICA match and so forth, but we'll even pretend they're working under the table for cash. So 20 workers * 80 hours == 1600 man-hours. So take those 1600 man-hours and * 8/hr and you get $12,800 to employ those workers to do your digging.
The skilled guy costs $40/hr and he takes 40 hours. You only have one guy, so that's 40 man-hours * 40 = $1600. Even if the backhoe costs $1,000 a day to run (it doesn't), you still came out ahead by $280 (assuming a 5-day work week).
I can hear the objections already -- but, you didn't figure in the cost of the backhoe! You're right, but the backhoe is a capitalized expense, which means it can be written off. You can do this either once, or you can ammortize the cost over the life of the backhoe. Which means, in essence, the backhoe costs almost nothing. I can't do the same with payroll costs -- they eat into my bottom line AND don't do anything appreciable for my taxes. Plus, there are tons of "hidden" costs with employees -- theft, lost productivity, workers comp claims, etc. The backhoe, by comparison, doesn't usually require additional capital expense. And if it does -- well, it's a capital expense and therefore can be written off!
It's important to remember that business exist to make money, not to employ people.
(Mods: this is an old story now, but feel free to mod me down if you like)
My blog
In fact, they aren't rights. They sound like mush-brained talking points.. I couldn't say anything bad about the lies used to invade Iraq without being called a traitor and worse. I couldn't question the use of the fighting in Iraq without being told I hate the troops. You know, shit like that. You seem to want all the benefits of a high-tech society without paying your fair share in taxes.
Blar.
Keep it up Mr. Troll. Keep it up. My liberal income is subsidizing your hate through the Federal Tax Code, and yes, you are welcome.
Blar.
But your examples of 'Liberals resgtricting Rights' seem petty and disingenuous which are often the signs of a troll. To me, those are non-issues compared to being spied on with no warrant or having my habeus corpus rights taken from me. Being lied to in order to start a war...it was conservatives who did that. Adding 25% to the national debt...that was conservatives. I don't really care about gun ownership...the only reason I'd want guns would be to protect myself from government. A semi-auto rifle can't compare to the military and para-military police forces out there, even if the Iraqis seem to be pulling it off.
Federal tax code takes money from 'rich' states and gives it to 'poor' states. The Rich states...NY, NJ, CA, CT, etc...all pretty liberals. The poor states? MO, MI, LA, AL, NM, AL which trend conservative. Yeah, you weren't the right person to make that comment to since I have no idea where you live.
Blar.