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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.
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...
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.
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
"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.
Also, when did pedophilia become a crime? Child abuse, yes, that is a heinous crime.
But why should someone who just fantasizes about sex with children be treated as a criminal? Because he or she might have a higher risk of abusing children in the future? Is that potential risk a criminal act people should be punished for? Does our hatred of the crime blind us so much that we are willing to harshly punish others who have done no wrong in order to possibly save more children?
In my opinion, this doesn't turn the pedophiles into monsters; it turns us into monsters.
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.
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);
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.
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?
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.
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)
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
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...
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)
Google logo change.
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?!?