Slashdot Mirror
Google Turns Over Data on Suspected Pedophiles In Brazil
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, points to a Yahoo! story which begins "Google on Wednesday handed over data stored by suspected pedophiles on its Orkut social networking site to Brazilian authorities, ceding to pressure to lift its confidentiality duty to its users, officials said."
On Thursday they handed over information on terrorists
On Friday they handed over information on file-sharers
On Saturday they handed over information on everyone
Wednesday was the hardest. Every day after that it got easier and easier.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Let`s ask Google how much our private data is worth.
Many times 'suspected' means 'guilty' after emotions applied
Cause you know, everyone is entitled to protection of privacy unless suspected (quite possibly innocent, but suspected) of crime-du-jour, whether today's hatred is towards child abuse, terrorism or being member of a communist party. And of course, a government would never abuse the special right to treat suspects of such a crime differently to, say, use suspicion of such a crime as a pretext to get at others. Oh, no, that'd never happen!
As much as I may hate child abusers and terrorists, I think suspects of such crimes should be offered the same Ius Commune rights as everyone else -- they should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, and mere suspicion should never be enough to remove rights that you and I enjoy. But then again, I'm a commie mutant, so I probably shouldn't have any rights either...
Actually, on Friday I'm in love. :)
However, privacy and yadda yadda yadda. Pedophiles are the lowest of the lowest in my book. Why not use social networking sites as tools to catch those guys? If anything it'll deter them from using those sites to chase their prey.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting people's rights from undue invasion by governments. But there is also a need for governments to get access to information for criminal investigations. It's just as unreasonable to say that government should have no access to information about suspected terrorists and pedophiles, as it is to say that the government should have access to *everyones* information.
Although I usually hate the "slippery slope" argument, I think this is really one case where it is valid. Today they decide that it is ok to release the information on SUSPECTED pedophiles. Once you've opened the gates on something like this it is very hard to close it. If suspected pedophiles are ok, how about suspected terrorists? Suspected murderers? Where do you draw the line?
Lets hope the police are better than the UK police, who basically ruined this man's life on a false allegation of being a paedophile.
... something the police should have looked into before charging him.
It would be one ting if they had a reasonable amount of evidence, but it seems that it was all based on his credit card being used to pay for kiddie porn. Like how many purvs will use their own cards. Anyway, he later found that the computer that entered his details was in Indonesia, and could prove that he was in the UK at the time
Pedo's ruin it for everyone!
The meme is dead, long live the meme!
"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."
-Cardinal Richelieu
I took this quote from Scroogled story...
On Wednesday they handed over information on pedophiles
On Thursday they handed over information on terrorists
On Friday they handed over information on file-sharers
On Saturday they handed over information on everyone
Wednesday was the hardest. Every day after that it got easier and easier.
What are you talking about? Wednesday they had to hand over every one's data because everyone is suspected of being a pedophile, which is now defined as communicating in any form with a minor.
Oh now I'm as rabidly pro-privacy as the next person, but questioning authority and planning to commit a crime are entirely different matters.
I'm not supporting Google's actions, just pointing out that your counter-example is wrong.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
They always start with the "lowest of the low" precisely because they know no one will object to it. But they NEVER stop there. The next step is "Well, since you gave us information on these really bad guys, you can't object to giving us info on these *sorta* bad guys" which snowballs to the point where the government eventually just has its own monitoring room at your facility to watch *everyone*.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I just want to point out you completely missed the point. Questioning the ruling party IS a crime in nearly ALL fascist states. THAT is the path we are currently heading down, and THIS is yet another example. Give away your privacy, think of the children!
It's funny how everyone bends over backward to prevent companies from doing the right thing and then at the end of the day they wonder why our society is going to hell in a hand-basket.
The other day some local journalists were very upset because police used their unedited film footage to identify and arrest store looters (rioting occurred after a local hockey game).
I mean, the *nerve* of that police! How dare they try to arrest looters? Today they're using the footage to arrest looters, tomorrow they'll use it to arrest rapists! What's next?!
Do everyone a favor and reserve your complaints to when the government cracks down on people that do *not* cause want-on harm to society. After all, they weren't cracking down on the pedophiles because the way they look or because of their personal beliefs, rather they did this because some of these people actually went out and abused children!
And how long did it take after 9-11 and the Patriot Act before the U.S. government was data-mining every single citizen?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
From the article, it looked to me like they were asking Google for access to private photo albums. I don't know what evidence they had on the matter, what the privacy standards are like in Brazil, or whether they had a lawful subpoena, but if something like that was tried in the US, freedom-loving people would be throwing a hissy-fit, and possibly rightfully so.
what the Brazilian government asked for is access to several private photo albums for these suspected pedophiles. Apparently there were several Orkut communities being used to trade kiddy porn.
Interesting slip there.
You are innocent until proven guilty; at least, in theory, in America.
They use the word "suspects" but they really have probable cause and Google has being trying not to comply with DA's subpoenas for a long time now.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
If you had RTFA, you would see that the government didn't get warrants for any of these "suspects" and freely admitted that there wasn't enough evidence to do so. This isn't a case of some cop going before a judge and saying "Your honor, I need to subpoena this guy's records because I suspect he's a pedophile and here's my preliminary evidence." This was a case of the government saying "Here's a list of names. Give us all their information and don't ask any questions."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If a crime is committed, there will be a police investigation. The police then requests court orders to acquire private data belonging to the suspects. If the court finds there's reasonable evidence backing up the requests, it will gran them.. The police will then present the court order to the ISP and the ISP has to comply. That's how things already work in the US for all ISPs, including google.
The exact same procedure was followed in Brazil for this pedofilia case. As a matter of fact, the procedure was followed several times, but google failed to comply with all Brazilian's court orders regarding this matter. The case had to reach a senate comittee investigation ( which in Brazil functions similarly to a judicial investigation, but with more resources) in order to Google to comply with the court order.
Google's excuse for not complying with court order, you ask? Well, google told the Brazilian justice system that since the order wasn't isued within the USA they couldn't do a thing about it.
So that's it, folks, do panic for the same thing that's happening in Brazil has been happening in the US for quite a long time. The only difference is that google has kind of a hard time respecting Brazil's sovereigny.
The article simply says "Authorities had threatened Google with criminal and civil lawsuits if it did not comply with opening the restricted online photo albums of users under suspicion".
Which isn't quite the entire truth.
See, for example, http://www.denunciar.org.br/twiki/bin/view/SaferNet/Noticia20071019015559En
and you'll discover
"But Google faced a growing wave of complaints, many instigated by Mr. Tavares. Sérgio Gardenghi Suiama, a federal prosecutor in São Paulo in charge of human rights, began flooding the company's Brazil office with subpoenas seeking identifying information, such as email addresses, of Orkut users accused of committing crimes online.
Under direction from Google's U.S. headquarters, Mr. Hohagen refused to accept the subpoenas. Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, traveled to Brazil to explain the situation."
Eventually, authorities threatened to start arresting Google employees in Brazil, and courts started issuing threats of contempt, so they complied.
Not sure what else you guys were expecting to happen?
Do we really have to go through another Kristallnacht, another Auschwitz or Sachsenhausen for people to fight tyranny, totalitarianism -- and yes, Crimethink?
Where did pictures enter this story?
A pedophile doesn't require pictures any more than a normal male needs pictures of grown women. Fantasies, stories and drawings work just as well for them as for the rest of us, I reckon.
Yet, we make them having stories and drawings a crime, and if we could read their minds, I'm sure a lot of people would have advocated making their fantasies a crime too.
Only if the adult is male.
Please name one example of facism we have in the US where someone was prosecuted for speaking out against the government. Last time I checked, people do it every day in this country (including your post) and have the freedom to continue to do so.
The Constitution (not that Congress knows what that is) prevents such a state from forming.
You just keep insisting that the sky is falling. You do realize however that you remove credibility from the beliefs you intend to espouse when you make such statements, right?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I'm not seeing anything in the article that says they either did or did not get warrants. Then again, I don't know if warrants are even required in Brazil.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
It is basically a flimsy list. Lots of it is just teenagers being raunchy. The line does get blurred between the 16-22 demographic.
As an aside: If this had been the US government, the Constitution and years of constitutional law and judicial rulings would have required a subpoena Brazil doesn't use "English" Common Law. It uses "Roman/French" Civil Law, which means the only thing that is pertinent are the current laws on book. Judges give little weight to past jurisprudence.
Also we don't really have a bill of rights. We have a section in the constitution that enumerates rights but it contradicts itself (Not a bill of rights because it doesn't supercede the constitution). It starts by saying that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law but then mentions a few special rights for special groups. People with college degrees get to be in a jail cell by themselves for example.
The patriot act.
The constitution only bars such a state when it is followed. The executive branch in this country has made a point of proclaiming they are above the constitution and the checks and balances it lays forth, and nobody has done anything about it. It's nice you think a piece of paper will somehow protect your freedoms. The reality is quite different.
I don't know that I would mod this funny... insightful, perhaps.
ANYONE can be a "suspect" in the eyes of the government if they want information about you. Granted, your logic is all fine and dandy IF the ruling bodies of this country could be trusted any further than I could throw the White House. (Just a FYI, I CAN'T)
It plays like this:
Gov't: "We want information on the online activities Mr. John Doe of 333 West Burbank Ave., WTF, TX 11123"
Web Service: "Sorry, that information is private to the individual."
Gov't: "Ok then, we want information on the online activities of the SUSPECTED TERRORIST/PEDOPHILE/CURRENT 'EVIL' PERSON OF THE MINUTE Mr. John Doe of 333 West Burbank Ave., WTF, TX 11123, but, we don't have a warrant so we'll just invoke the 'Patriot Act'"
Web Service: "Oh! Ok then!
The sad part is, Mr. Doe has never done anything more wrong in his meager life than cross against the light.
What's that do for your "warm fuzzies" for helping rid the world of "suspected evil"?
The word "suspect(ed)" is used faaaaar too liberally by the government in order to get what they want. If they had our best intentions at heart and only used "suspect" when it was GENUINELY APPROPRIATE, I'd have far less of a reason to complain or worry.
But they don't, so I do.
Frankly, I'm disappointed in Google. Yes, the whole "stop the pedo's" has a strong pull, but there are so many ways to track/monitor/obtain evidence against "wrong-doers" today that there is practically no circumstances where a corporation turning over a individual's private information should be acceptable.
Ignorance causes people to hide behind the falsity "If you have nothing to hide then why do you need privacy?". The sad fact is, everyone, and I really DO mean EVERYONE, has SOMETHING that they don't want to be made public knowledge, period.
The all mighty governing body of this or other countries does NOT need to know everything about everyone and nor should they.
Our society has regressed several hundred years and we're all the way back to the Salem Witch Trials where we are all going around accusing each other of being hepatics when now many of the REAL criminals and wrong-doers are RUNNING THE COURTS while the rest of the ones that should be being caught are still running around doing what they will because we're all too busy hurling accusations at innocent people.
Just to wrap up here, allowing the government access to private factors of an individual by simply slapping the term "suspect" in front of their name is an extremely slippery slope that will only lead to tears as yet more of the principals this country was originally founded on crumble to dust.
This was NOT a good thing.
This signature is lame.
Please name one example of facism we have in the US where someone was prosecuted for speaking out against the government.
McCarthyism
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Err... Isn't thinking of the children what got this whole thread started to begin with? Perhaps that's not such a good idea, eh?
Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
Apart from the fact that "pedophiles" and "child molesters" aren't the same group, but two partially overlapping groups, the chances are that you are the lowest of the low in someone's book. If it's okay to ignore someone's rights because he's a pedophile, then it's also okay to ignore someone's rights because that someone happens to be you. Sure, you'd disagree - but then again, the people who's rights you refused to defend also disagreed, and it didn't do them much good, so it won't do much good for you either.
Child molesters are certainly scum. However, if you allow them to be deprived of their rights - including the right to privacy - then you are eroding the rights of both them and the children. Please think of the children and nip this in the bud !
Please also understand that "pedophiles" are, as far as authorities are concerned, no different than "terrorists" - a convenient boogeyman to keep people scared and act as X in "if we don't pass this law, the X win". It's a lot easier to turn the Internet into a tighly-controlled channel - and thus unable to threaten the status quo by letting people publish leaked information anonymously - if you can sell it as protecting children rather than protecting politicians.
Finally, the pedophilia boogeyman is already starting to hurt the very children supposedly protected; as an extreme example, there was a teen who got busted for uploading her own pictures, not to mention the couple who were arrested for sending each other pictures of themselves. Of course it hurts everyone else too - for example, this guy was thrown to prison and put to sex offender register for writing fiction.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It was a valid use. Godwin's law came abut because Hitler would be used in extremely ridiculous examples.
Can people like you even talk about WWII ?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You get a cookie. I will concede that you brought up a good example.
However, despite the concession, I will point out that we universally declare that to be a big fucking mistake.
McCarthy stands as an example of what we can not allow. And our current government (for all its flaws) is not the McCarthy-era government.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I'm pretty sure filesharers are the lowest of the lowest in the books of the RIAA. So who gets to decide where to stop? Or where to start? Or what to do altogether? You? The RIAA? The government?
It's called the salami attack. You start with something everyone (or nearly everyone, except maybe the pedophiles) agrees with. Or at least doesn't dare to speak out against. Who'd stand up to defend the pedos? Many people would readily agree that this is actually a good idea. Some more won't care. And a few won't mind. Then you tackle the next fringe group. Terrorists are a good target, mostly because it's another group nobody readily allies with. In the wake you will find someone from another group that just happens to be in one of the first groups, which is a nice tool to say that this other group needs to be monitored, too, because you noticed that, say, a few gays also happened to be pedophiles, so it's time to monitor the gay communities. Again, some will agree, some will not care, some will not mind.
Over time, it becomes the norm. And it doesn't matter anymore whether you agree, care or mind.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They always start with the "lowest of the low" precisely because they know no one will object to it.
Problem is laws change over time. Once it was the liquor smugglers, the blacks, the jews, nowadays it's the peds or the maryjane growers.
Lot's of cultures have no problem marrying/having sex with 10-12 year olds, some of those cultures even in the US if I believe the recent news about that mormon sect.
Shakespeare had no problem in his puritan times with a play about Juliet being "not yet fifteen".
Do you honestly believe the privacy should trump child molestation?
I believe privacy should trump having a hunch. There is a difference between "we have good reason to suspect that person and need something to nail the coffin" and "we think he might be a pedo, so hand over anything you have about him so we can get some evidence against him".
I'm fairly sure you can nail me as a terrorist by my google search records. Or as a communist. Or drug cook. Or as anything you want, bluntly. I have a wide range of interests, none of which are in any way "illegal" per se, but can sometimes be used for illegal means.
We're on the verge of making knowledge illegal. Scratch the verge, we're already there with making it illegal to inform people of bomb building. Yes, I know how to make a bomb out of rather easily gathered over the counter chemicals. That doesn't make me a terrorist. I know how to make LSD. That doesn't make me the next drug cook. I read "The Capital" online. That doesn't make me a communist. And I did a lot of other things online that can be forged into evidence with some creativity. I wouldn't even deem it impossible to make me a pedophile by my search records, maybe something I searched for was some sort of code for a pedo page.
That's the difference here.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The sad part is that you got modded Insightful. Note that these are only *suspected* pedophiles, and apparently the authorities couldn't even be bothered to get a warrant to get the same information through legal, uncontroversial channels.
Kneejerk reactions like yours ruin society for the rest of us, far more so than a handful of pedophiles, real or alleged, ever could.
Yeah, 'cause now it's not the reds, it's the bloody TERRORISTS! Very, very, very different, plain to see!
You'll have that sometimes...
When did we lose the freedom to question our government?
This was certainly a pretty good attempt.
I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
You'll have that sometimes...
Wish I had mod points myself.
Innocent until proven guilty is not by any means a recent concept. The concept was around even during ancient greece.
This idea is key to democracy, as otherwise, there can be no freedom if everyone has to prove their innocence at every turn. Because the US is turning into a guilty until proven innocent state, especially where heinous crimes like terrorism or child abuse are concerned (and Iraq--musn't forget Iraq), it is exactly the kind of indicator that this country is turning away from democracy and into something far worse.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Could we have just a moment of clarity and really think about something before we run circles screaming "All Governments are EVIL!". Complying with a legal governments request is hardly being someones bitch, not when someone is involving you with their crimes. Lets be real here, pedophiles saving their photos on a website involves the website. We can't reasonably expect all websites to be responsible for everything it's users post and upload for storage but the website is still being involved. If a friend of yours asks you to hold a bag for him and give it to someone else and that bag has a bomb in it he has involved you. Maybe you trust that friend and never peek in the bag and hence are innocent of any wrong doing, but if you do look in the bag I don't think anyone has any question as to what the right thing to do would be. Is there really any question as to what the right thing to do about pedophiles? While we are at it could someone please point out how chasing pedophiles in Brazil will cut in to my liberties here in the USA? Also please point out the "tyranny, totalitarianism".... lived here all my life and I keep looking for it when I hear people talking about how bad things are but never see it. Maybe things could be bit better... but do you really have any idea how much worse it could be?
So... what's the difference between a communist in the McCarthy-era government and a terrorist in the Bush-era government? Ever heard about Guantanamo or Patriot Act?
It seems like the US government always needs a vague foe (be it a with mustache in Russia or with a beard in an Afghanistan cave) to scare the population and keep it under tight control.
Too bad it takes you 50 years to realize it!
"Not sure if you're aware of this, but most teenagers who go on homocidal rampages spend a lot of time fantasizing about that sort of thing before they actually commit the crime. THe more material they have abvailable to fantasize with, the futher progress down the path of becoming a murderer themselves."
(paraphrasing Jack Thompson on why we should ban games such as Grand Theft Auto)
If you wait until you're personally being oppressed, it quite possibly will be too late to do anything about it.
Google logo change.
Wanna stop your pro child pornography speech now?
The troubling thing is that the distinction isn't clear ... I can't tell if you mean that "nothing happens" in the "it's acceptable" sense or in the "there's no trial" sense. Depends on who you are, whether you protested in a "free speech zone", who you've phoned in the past few years, or which websites you've visited I guess. And that makes it worse, not better -- trials at least would allow for some form of check and balance oversight system.
A transparent government exposes bad laws/inconsistent enforcement to public scrutiny. That doesn't seem to be "en vogue" anymore.
"The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth." -- Bene Gesserit Precept
Yeah - no one would be arrested for voicing their opinions. Like in NYC during the Republican convention. Or just standing next to someone who was...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/nyregion/12video.html
The FBI wouldn't spy on you for being in a peaceful anti-war group, right?
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MIL20060127&articleId=1835
No one would be arrested because they wore an anti-Bush Tshirt, right?
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/17/3243/
And you accuse others of not seeing? Look the f*ck around.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
The fiction is the pornography in question - you did know the term covers literature too, rather than just pictures ? From the link, with emphasis added by me for your benefit:
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Mostly right except you are forgetting several things:
Had Brazil requested help from the FBI they probably would have gotten their data. By trying to force a company to produce something it didn't have, they just created an impasse. Handling cases involving international corps isn't as simplistic as people try to make it out to be. In this case - Google US couldn't just acknowledge Brazil's sovereignty without disregarding the US', and Google BR just couldn't comply with the request because they didn't have the data to give up.
I'll be surprised if the OP can say he never read this quotation, since he paraphrased it so nicely, to wit:
"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."
--H.L. Mencken (1917)
cited from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken
-- Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
U.S. law also considers anything that advertises itself as containing visual depictions of children in sexual activity to also be child pornography. So if I were to create a link to whitehouse.gov on a web page, and if the web page were to claim the link pointed to pictures of children having sex, that web page would also count as child pornography according to the definitions in the U.S. Code. If you were to have that web page in your cache, you could be prosecuted and convicted of possession of child pornography even though no actual images were involved. The only question is how much the government wants you behind bars. Of course, I could also be prosecuted for creating the page in the first place.
That's how the police state starts.... Make sure everyone has violated enough laws that they can be imprisoned at a moments notice. If everyone is guilty of an imprisonable offense, only people who speak in favor of the government have freedom of speech.
Support SETI@home